The Wind Blows Free
by Dixie Darlin
Summary: Part One of Three.  Three city sisters, counterfeiters, romance, broken friendships, hostages, and more.  A not so average summer in Hazzard, but yet this IS Hazzard.
1. City Girls, Country Girls

**A/N: Finally, my first DOH fic! I love this show with all my heart, and I decided to TRY and write a masterpiece story for it. I've got 3 original characters that I slightly based off myself (please don't consider them Mary Sues, b/c they're not) and this is the story of growing up and love out in the country.**

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**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter One: City Girls, Country Girls**

Ali Willows was slumped in the passenger seat of the moving car staring up at the pine trees as they blurred past the window. Her window was down and the cigarette in her hand was sending a trail of smoke to the outside world. Her boy-short dark brown hair barelymoved from its heavily hair-sprayed position. She dragged her eyes towards the clock under the dashboard and heaved a sigh.

"Sis, you realize it's been half an hour since we've seen any sign of civilization, haven't you?"

"Yeah, isn't it great?" her older sister, Evelyn Willows, smiled over at her from the driver's seat."No traffic jams, no stop lights, nobody screaming profanities at you from the next car over---"Her pretty smile fell into a scowl. "Ali, how many times do I have to tell you, no smoking in _my_ car! You know I can't stand that smell!"

Ali rolled her eyes and flicked the still lit cigarette out the window. She slumped even more in her seat, crossing her arms as she did so, a rather childish posture for a 25 year old."Why did we have to move out here anyway? Everything was fine in Atlanta. You had that high-paying job at the Courthouse and I was doing great at that nightclub."

Eve pushed some of her sandy blonde hair behind her ears that had fallen from her up-do, the way she usually wore it when going somewhere. "Because I for one got sick of the city. Don't you two remember the lake house, how peaceful it was?"

Rachel, the youngest of the sisters, was in the backseat playing with the end of her very long ponytail. She raised her eyes up when she realized someone was talking to her. "You know I don't remember much about Mom and Dad," she said in her usual quiet voice. "But I'm with Ali on this. I had plenty of friends in Atlanta."

"Rach, all your _friends_ had left for college last year, which is what _you _should have done," Eve explained. "I don't understand why you wanted to wait a year anyway. I loved college."

"Don't get in a rush, kid," Ali told her younger sister. "Enjoy freedom while you can."

"Stop giving her ideas, just because you flunked high school doesn't mean she isn't able to make something of herself," the older of the three stated. "Bartending isn't exactly a career, y'know."

"It's more fun than being a stuffy lawyer," Ali snorted.

"Look, y'all, I'm sure it'll be fine in Hazzard," Eve assured them, changing the subject. It seemed like every time her and Ali spoke to each other, they ended up arguing, especially about money and their sister's future. "Cousin Cooter's supposed to be down at the house waitin' for us and show us the place. Then we can get moved in and we can start new."

Suddenly, a flash of orange sped past them and left behind a trail of dust. Eve slammed on the brakes and jerked the car to a halt. "What on earth was _that_?"

"A freaky orange car," Ali answered, leaning up in her seat. "Seems like somebody out here as some taste."

A patrol car with the lights on and the siren blaring came past them about a minute later."Awesome, a car chase!" Ali grinned. "I wonder what they're bein'hunted for? Murder? Drugs?"

"Give me a break, sis," Eve groaned, easing her foot of the brake and allowing the car to move.

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Cooter Davenport rubbed at hishalf-grown beardthat had been growing. He was leaned up against his tow truck in front of the two-story white siding house that his Atlanta cousins were moving into. He hadn't seen them in years, not since their parents died in a car crash in Miami while on vacation. The youngest sister, Rachel, had only been sixteen when it happened and had to live with her oldest sister, Evelyn, who was a well-known prosecution lawyer over in Atlanta. Ali, the drop-out middle sister, was a bartender at one of the clubs, a bit of a party animal. 

Just when he thought he was going to doze off, he caught sight of the tan colored sedan and waved them over. He had a big smile on his face as the girls all got out of the car and he walked towards them.

"Hey, girls!" he greeted them, giving Eve a hug. "Evie, you haven't changed a bit, you still looked dressed for the board room."

"Prim and proper, that's her," Ali commented, patting her cousin on the back. "How's it goin', Coot?"

"It's okay, I reckon." His eyes got big when he saw her ultra-short hair. "Whoa, what happened to you? It wasn't like that last time I saw you!"

She ran her fingers through the short locks. "Yep, decided it was time for a change. Like it?"

"Uh . . . yeah, sure," he told her, not really liking it that much. "Rachel!" he said excitedly as he saw his youngest cousin shyly joining them. "You've sure grown! How old are ya know?"

"Nineteen," she said in her soft voice, her eyes downcast.

"Still shy, huh? Hey, y'all wanna check out the house? I'm sure you'll love it."

As they all started walking up the stairs to the front door, Ali couldn't help but ask, "Hey, Coot, you country folks got any clubs around here?"

He looked a little confused at the question. "Well . . . we got 4-H at the high school."

Rachel hid a laugh behind her hand. Ali gave him a blank expression. "What? No, no, no, silly, I meanlike a bar, somewhere to party around here."

"OH! Uh, it's not really a _bar_, more of a restaurant, but it sells beer and stuff. It's called the Boar's Nest, it's the biggest hang-out place in town. I'll drive you over there later if you'd like."

Ali let out a "wooo!" Cooter and Eve exchanged a similar glance of embarrassment. "Fine," Eve said. "But no staying out late, or any of that nonsense. And no dragging boys home. Same for you, Rachel."

The youngest gawked at her. "Don't give me that," Eve continued. "I know you want to go with Ali, so I'll just let you go. Don't forget that you're underaged and stay with your sister."

"Aw, relax, Evie," Cooter gave her a somewhat reassuring smile. "I want let nothin' happen to my favorite cousins. Not much they can get into anyhow. Oh, by the way," he dug into his back pocket for a piece of paper. "Here's the directions to the County Courthouse on seeing about a job. I can't promise you'll get what you want, but just talk to J.D. Hogg and he'll see you get something."

**Balladeer: Hm, three pretty sisters letting themselves loose in Hazzard. I wonder what could possibly happen. Don't worry, Eve, Boss seems to like pretty women, he should hire you in no time flat.**

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Okay, that's the first chapter, I hope y'all like it enough to keep reading. It's really really good, trust me, I've been working on it for a while trying to perfect the details. So send in the reviews, please! (Keeps fingers crossed) :) 


	2. Duke Boys

**A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed! Sorry it took a while, been busy with work and all. So, here's chappie number two!**

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**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Two: Duke Boys**

Bo and Luke Duke, cousins that were closer than brothers, sat at their own table in the corner laughing at some of the stuff they had done that day . . . and that included losing the town sheriff earlier during their car chase. Luke was about to comment on Bo's driving skills whenever he saw his best friend, Cooter Davenport, enter the restaurant . . . with two girls. Luke playfully hit his cousin on the arm to look in the direction he was looking then got up from his seat.

"Hey, Cooter," he greeted with a smile. "Wasn't expectin' you here. Who's your friends?"

"Oh, these are my cousins---"

"Ali Willows' the name," the girl with the shortest hair either of the Dukes had ever seen on a girl said, extending a hand to shake. Both boys looked her up in town in her tight black tank top and similarly tight blue shorts, complete with little black heels. She had to be the funkiest person they'd met. "And partyin's the game." She pointed back to her sister. "This is my little sis, Rachel. Don't expect her to talk much, cat's got her tongue twentyfour-seven."

The girl, Rachel, looked so different from Ali that it was hard to tell they were sisters. Their facial features were somewhat alike, but it was in the way they dressed. Rachel was wearing a simple pink polo shirt with khaki pants. Her sister . . . well, a little more . . . provocative, let's say.

"I'm Luke Duke, and this is my cousin, Bo," the oldest Duke boy introduced. "Y'all are Cooter's cousins? That ought to be a heck of a family reunion."

"It can be," Ali replied.

"They just moved here," Cooter explained to his friends. "I'm tryin' to show 'em around and all."

"Oh, so y'all are gonna be livin' here?" Bo asked with a hopeful grin on his face. "I'm havin' fun already."

"Anybody wanna buy me a drink?" Ali asked, with a smile. "I haven't had anything in days, and I'm about to die from lack of liquor."

"I'll get it," Luke offered. "What do you like?"

"A beer's fine . . . for now."

"Anybody else want anything?" he asked before heading over to the bar.

"Grab me one, Luke," Cooter told him.

"So, you two are sisters," Bo stated to the girls after Luke left. "Are there anymore of ya runnin' around?"

"We have an older sister," Rachel mentioned, the first she'd said since she arrived. "Her name's Eve."

"Aw, but she's a party pooper," Ali groaned, taking out a cigarette from her back pocket and a lighter from the other one. "Strictly business withher. She's a lawyer. And there's no use tryin' to hook up with her anyways. She doesn't trust men outside the family."

Bo looked over to the side. "That might be good to know."

"I don't blame her," Rachel said quietly, mainly to Ali. "I'd be the same way if I had been married to that jerk."

Just then, Luke came back carrying two beers, handing one to Ali and the other to Cooter.

"So, what you country folks do for fun around here?" Ali asked, taking a large swig of her drink. "Seems kinda dead around here."

Luke and Bo gave each other a devilish grin. "You haven't been riding with us in the General Lee yet, that's why?"

"General Lee?"

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Everyone was outside looking at the Dukes' orange car with the big "01" on the side and a Confederate flag painted on the top. Ali tossed her cigarette and whistled.

"Pretty rad car. Say, y'all must've been those two we saw passing us on the road earlier. Gettin' chased by the fuzz."

"That would be us," Bo smiled. "Always gettin' in trouble for stuff we don't know about."

"Hey, ya think we could take a spin in it?"

Cooter got a worried look. "Now, Ali, I promised your sister I wouldn't let you two out of my sight."

"Oh, come on, Cooter, we'll be careful," Luke promised. "It won't hurt nothin'. We'll bring 'em right back here when we finish showin' 'em around."

"Well . . . all right."

"Woo-hoo!" Ali let out, going to open the door. She got a little confused when it wouldn't open though. "Hey, your door's jammed or something. It won't budge."

"They're welded shut, sis," Rachel informed her, immediately getting a look from everybody around her.

"What?" Ali asked.

"It's a racecar," she explained quietly, shyer now that she was being stared at. "Race car doors are welded shut."

"You like racing?" Luke asked her.

"Richard Petty's my favorite," she smiled.

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Bo left a trail of dust in his wake as he accelerated the General around a curve. Luke was sitting beside him and the girls were in the back seat.

"This is such an awesome ride!" Ali complimented. "What else can this baby do?"

As if on cue, the sound of a siren appeared and flashing red-and-blue lights came into view. Bo and Luke heaved a sigh, Bo changing the gears of thecar.

"You're about to find out," Bo answered Ali as they ripped on down the road, the patrol car following posthaste. "Dog-gone, can't Rosco find anything better to do with his time?"

"He'll make us DO time ifya don't step on it," Luke lightly joked. "Word to the wise, girls, Sheriff Rosco Coltrane is not the guy to play games with, especially when he's trying to pin something on ya."

"Especially when Boss Hogg's the one to come up with some hare-brained idea," Bo added as hestarted speeding much past the speed limit.

"Who the heck is Boss Hogg?" Ali asked.

"I hope ya never find out, but he's county commissioner and probably the most corrupt man in the state. He's always out to throw us in prison."

Bo looked farther up ahead and warned, "Y'all hang onto something, we're fixin' to jump the creek!"

And with that, the General Lee went beautifully soaring over the creek, Bo hitting the car horn all the while so that the "Dixie" song would play. Rachel shut her eyes, but Ali let out a big "woooooo!", followed by, "This ride is _pumpin'_!"

The car hit the ground on the other side rather roughly, jolting everybody inside and Bo skidded to a stop. Everybody turned around to see that Rosco had stopped, not even bothering to jump the creek himself.

"Well, that's one patrol car he don't have to worry about towing off," Bo grinned.

"Until next time, anyway," Luke told him. "Come on, let's get these girls back to the Boar's Nest before Cooter has a case of fits."

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Hope y'all enjoyed, I got this wrote faster than I expected, maybe chapter 3 won't take long either :) Please review and keep reading! 


	3. Demotion

**A/N: Amazing that I had time to write this before work . . . I hope y'all are enjoyin' this, so I give you chapter number 3!

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**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Three: Demotion**

**Balladeer: In the meantime, while Ali and Rachel were getting to know the Duke boys, their sister Eve had made her way to the Courthouse by using the written directions that Cooter had given her. In case y'all forgot, she's a high-powered lawyer and she's aimin' to get a job here in Hazzard County.**

"So, you're from Atlanta?" J.D. "Boss" Hogg asked Eve as he reviewed her resume that had been handed to him. His cigar was lying in an ash tray and releasing a trail of smoke that seemed to be attracted to Eve's eyes, seeing as she was constantly waving the air-borne material away from her and blinking every few seconds.

"Yes, sir, I just moved here today with my two younger sisters."

"I see. And what brings you to Hazzard County?"

"I got tired of the city, myself. I'd always wanted a little place in the country, so when my cousin Cooter Davenport told me about a house for sale down here, I took the deal."

"Huh," he replied, raising his eyebrows a little when he heard that Cooter was her cousin, but he didn't say anything about it. "And from what I can see here, you've had a pretty good career so far, won 20 cases in the three years you've been in law. Graduated from Harvard, fifth in the class. Pretty impressive, Miss Willows."

"Thank you, Mr. Hogg."

"It says here you changed your last name recently."

"Oh, I got a divorce two years ago. I went back to my maiden name when everything became legal."

Boss handed her resume back to her. "Well, I don't really know what to tell ya, Miss Willows. I don't really need a lawyer at this time." _Or any other time_. "But seein' that you took the time to come down here and talk with me, I might can see about _something_. Uh, lemme think here . . . oh, I know! How's about a secretary job—temporarily, of course."

Eve's heart dropped. "A secretary?"

"Only until I am in need of a lawyer, Miss Willows, _then_ I can get you the position you're wantin'."

**Balladeer: Ain't that something? Go to Harvard to become a secretary. Someone shoulda mentioned to Eve that Boss never had a use for a lawyer. He _is_ the law in these parts, and don't need to have to worry about an outsider (a LEGAL) outsider comin' in and takin' him to court for all the illegal activities he has planned.**

A knock on the door was heard and without even being invited in, a uniformed officer wearing a black cowboy hat came inside. "Boss, I need to talk to ya."

"Rosco, for heaven's sake, can't you see I'm busy right now! Ya just can't waltz in here expectin' me to be ready to talk to ya!" Boss smiled at Eve. "I apologize for my sheriff being so rude as to interrupt us, Miss Willows. He doesn't know his manners sometimes. Don't just stand there, numbskull, apologize!"

Rosco gave him a slight glare before tipping the brim of his hat towards the lady in the chair—whoever she was. "Sorry, ma'am," he muttered.

"It's quite all right. I need to be goin' anyhow," she said, getting up out of her seat. "It was nice meetin' you both."

Boss held her by the hand. "It was nice to meet you too, Miss Willows. You can come by here tomorrow at nine in the morning, sharp. When you get here, if there's anything you need, you just tell Sheriff Coltrane here or his deputy, Enos Strate, to get it for you. Ain't that right, Rosco?"

"Uh, sure, Boss, whatever you say."

Eve went to shake Rosco's hand. "I'm sure I won't need much, Sheriff Coltrane. I know you officers get real busy sometimes. I'll see y'all tomorrow."

"Good-bye," Boss smiled as she left out the door.

Once they were sure that she'd left the building, Rosco couldn't help but ask, "Now, what was all _that_ about, who is she?"

"She's a lawyer from Atlanta that just moved here," Boss explained to him, picking up his cigar and taking in a breath of it before exhaling it. "But you know that I ain't got no need for those people, but I figured that she might get suspicious if I told her that, so I simply said for her to be my secretary until something came up."

"That's real sneaky, Boss," Rosco grinned.

"Isn't it? Now, what was you wantin' to tell me? You came bargin' in here like it was some sort of emergency."

"Huh? Oh, yeah . . . I just thought you should know that those Duke boys were speedin' past ol' Sassafras Lane earlier today, so I ran them off there before they decided to take the turn there."

"Sassafras Lane! Oh, they better _not_ be goin' down there. Did you write 'em up?"

"Uh, no, they jumped that creek that's flowing through there, and . . . well, personally, I'm gettin' a little tired of wrecking cars everyday chasin' them, so I —"

"Let them get away!" Boss finished for him in a loud tone, causing Rosco to flinch. "You lame-brain, I don't care if you only come back with a _steering wheel_, I want those Duke boys behind bars the next time you catch them doin' _anything_, _especially_ when it's next to Sassafras Lane, you understand! I can't have them boys snoopin' around over there." He lowered his voice and added, "If them boys find out about my underground counterfeiting business I have goin' on, I will have your job _and_ your head on a silver platter!"

"My head, Boss?" the sheriff gulped.

"Yes! Now get out there and get back to work!"

**Balladeer: I shoulda known. Everytime Rosco is seen chasin' the boys, that means that there's something goin' on that has Boss's name written all over it.**

"That little _troll_!" Eve fumed as she started slicing up vegetables for the stew she was going to make for dinner. "The nerve of him, demotin' me to secretary! Secretary! I _had_ one of those in Atlanta! No good, rotten, little—"

"What are you mumblin' about in there!" Ali called from the livin' room.

"Nothing!" Eve hollered back, hacking a head of lettuce in half with one strike. "Just—just come in here and help me with this, you know I can't cook."

Ali pranced in there beside her sister. "Then why even bother gettin' started with it? You let me handle the real food and you just deal with dessert. Last time you cooked, I thought I'd bitten into a rock disguised as a biscuit."

"Cute."


	4. Mysterious Voices

**A/N: ): boo-hoo, nobody sent me any reviews for the last chappie. oh well, i give y'all chapter 4 anyhow.

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**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Four: Mysterious Voices**

It was around six o'clock in the morning when the sound of someone beating on a door woke Eve up. She looked at her clock, realized she still had another hour to sleep, and threw a pillow on top of her head to drown out the noise. But the knocking got louder and then the sound of somebody yelling her name got her to throw her pillow on the floor and step out of bed onto the cold hardwood floor. With red puffy eyes and a disgruntled look, the thirty-year-old blonde swung the door open to see her two sisters fully dressed as if they were going somewhere.

"Mornin' Eve," her chipper sister Ali quipped, annoyingly smacking on a piece of chewing gum. "Boy, ya look like a train wreck. We're goin' out with Bo and Luke, we sorta arranged for a day out today."

"Bo and Luke?" Eve asked groggily, not knowing who they were.

"They're two of Cooter's buddies we met last night, they're real cool, they're the guys with the orange car we saw yesterday," Ali spit out, literally, slightly drizzling her half-asleep sister."We're gonna be hangin' with them today, so we thought we'd let you know." She did a back-and-forth motion with her hand. "Bye now."

The two girls were already racing to the front door, Eve yelling, "You couldn't have just left a note!"

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The General raced down the dirt roads of Hazzard County, making sharp turns and jumping over numerous obstacles. The radio wasblasting aHank Williams, Jr. song, whichAli and Rachel were singing along to. The boys didn't really have a gameplan for the day, but if something was to come up, they would most assuredly run into it. 

"Hey, Bo, turn up here on Sassafras Lane," Luke suggested from the passenger seat, turning the volume down slightly on the radio. "There's a good place to jumpon downthere."

"You got it," the younger cousin grinned, accelerating the engine and turning onto the road that was just up ahead.

They came upon an old wooden barn, dilapadated and moss-covered from old age and from weather elements over the years. The roof was sunk in on it frombad storm that had hit long after it had been retired from its use as a storage for hay bales. Rachel peered at it and asked,

"Hey, whose cars are those? Parked behind that barn?"

Bo slowed down and turned the radio off. Everybody seemed to be staring at the building. Luke scratched his head. "That's odd, nobody's used that barn in over a decade. It's certainly in no condition to be used again."

"Maybe we better find out what's goin' on, then," Bo told him, backing the car up and behind some bushes on the side of the road.

"Boy, you country folks know how to live, don't y'all?" Ali asked as the two boys climbed out of the windows. "Sneakin' around and bein' all mysterious, like."

"Seems like that's all anybody ever does around here," Luke slightly joked. "Now you two stay here in the car. If ya see us running back, crank up so we can get out fast. If we don't come back at all, get on the CB and call for either Shephard or Bo Peep. That's code talk for our Uncle Jesse and our cousin Daisy. And tell them that Lost Sheep are in trouble."

The boys ran off across the road, then started sneaking behind bushes and trees just in case there was a guard in the building watching out for trespassers. Ali punched her sister in the arm playfully.

"See, I _told_ you life would be fun out here in the country!"

"Are you kiddin', you were one that said we should have stayed in Atlanta!"

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The boys didn't get any surprises as they made their way towards the barn. In fact, the place seemed deserted except for the presence of the two vehicles. Luke waved Bo over to where he was at the barn's entrance, and the two of them slowly made their way inside. All they could see were cobwebs, a sleeping hoot owl in the corner, a couple of mice, some old hay laying around, and a couple of old barrels. Some haybaling equipment were left in the corner, rusted and appeared broken.

Bo shook his head. "It don't make sense. Them cars didn't drive themselves, y'know."

"I'm a little stumped myself---wait. Did you hear that?"

Bo was real quiet and listened. "What is it?"

"Someone talking," Luke answered him. He pointed down to the ground. "From down there."

The cousins exchanged glances and then stretched out over the barn floor and pressed their ears against the ground. Sure enough, someone _was_ talking, only it sounded like mumbling to the boys and couldn't make out what they were saying.

"I can't make heads or tails of it," Luke groaned, gettingup and dusting himself off. "What do you make of it?"

"Some nut likes hangin' out under barns? I don't know!"

Luke looked around the barn one more time and sighed. "Look, let's come back here when those vehicles are gone and we don't have the girls with us. I'm itchin' to figure out what's down there."

"Yeah."

The boys walked out of the building, not worrying that anyone was watching the area anymore, which was a mistake, because almost immediately, somebody pulled up and _did_ spot them.

"Hey, what are kids think you're doin'!" a man called out, jumping out of a black car, pulling a gun out.

"Better scat, Bo!" Luke yelled, dodging a bullet as the man started shooting.

**Balladeer: Them boys get into more trouble than 'coons at harvest time. **

Bo started running in a zig-zag fashion towards the General, in efforts to make the shooter less able to aim the gun at him.Luke hurled himself at the man, kicking the gun out of his hand and punching his face in. He got knocked around a bit himself, landing backwards on the ground while wrestling with the man.

Bo got near the car and started yelling, "Crank him up, crank him up!"

The girls didn't know what on earth was going on but Ali swiftly leaned towards the steering wheel and turned the key just as Bo was climbing in. He put the General in gear and floored the gas.

"What's goin' on?" Ali demanded to know, her heart pounding. "Where's Luke at? Why we in such a hurry?"

"I'll explain later," Bo hurriedly told her, whipping the car towards where his cousin was still doing battle with the stranger. Luckily nobody had shown up to help beat him up.

Luke gave the man one final punch to the face before scrambling to get inside the car. "Step on it!" he yelled, the car spinning out and heading back on the road towards Hazzard.

They'd been driving only thirty seconds when Luke asked, "Are they followin' us?"

Rachel looked back. All she could see was the dust that the General was kicking up. "Nope, nothing."

"What in tarnation is goin' on, y'all?" Ali asked, frustrated that nobody had said anything and also that she hadn't gotten in on any action. "Who was that fella you were poundin' on?"

"We don't know," Luke told her, breathing heavily from the scuffle. "We heard voices comin' from underneath the barn. I reckon there's a secret lair or somethin' down there."

"Yeah, and they must be hidin' somethin' 'cause that guy sure didn't seem too happy about us bein' there," Bo added, glancing back and forth between the road and the car mirrors.

"A secret room under a barn?" Ali asked. "Y'all plan on findin' out what's down there?"

"Oh, yeah, and I bet it's got Boss Hogg's name written all over it, too."

"I wanna help," Ali stated without hesistation. Rachel gave her a scared look.

"No way," Luke insisted. "I'm not about to put a woman's life in danger. This is somethin' me and Bo better do alone."

"I doubt that, I'm not lettin' you boys have all the fun. Are we, sis?"

Rachel continued to stare at her. "Us?"

"Hold on, now, you _both _can't tag along. It'd be hard enough keepin' an eye on _one_ of ya," Luke had to say.

"But we'd be loads of help," Ali insisted, really wanting to get in on this adventure. "We could be look-outs or something. Or you could have us be the distraction or whatever. Anything, please, you can't let me stay at my house with absolutely nothin' to do while y'all go chasin' after bad guys."

Bo looked over at his cousin. "Well, whattya say? They in or out?"

Luke looked back at the two girls, Ali giving him puppy-dog eyes. He leaned back in his chair and sighed. "All right, y'all can help."

**Balladeer: I knew he wouldn't be able to resist a woman's charm.**

Ali pumped her fist in the air. "Yes!"

"_But_," Luke quickly interrupted, holding a finger up. "You cannot tell Cooter about what went on today or what will go on in the future, promise?"

"Hey, that's no problem, I can keep a secret," Ali crossed her heart and zipped her lip.

"Eve is gonna flip," Rachel muttered, holding her face in her hands.

"Not if she don't find out," Ali insisted. "Which she _won't_, because _you're_ not gonna tell her. What she don't know can't hurt her."

"But---"

"Ali's right, Rachel," Bo had to admit. "Your sister may be a great person, but if she's gonna be workin' under Boss Hogg, it might not be such a good idea if she finds out about any of this. This has to be hush-hush. She might let it slip out to either him or even to Rosco or Enos that we're snoopin' around up here."

Rachel sighed. She didn't like keeping things from her sisters, either of them, even if it was necessary. "All right, I won't tell."

**Balladeer: I hope nobody gets into major trouble over this. But I got a baaaad feelin' . . . **


	5. Office Space

**A/N: Hey, y'all, here's the next chapter!**

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The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Five: Office Space**

**Balladeer: While her sisters were ridin' around with the Dukes, Eve had made her way to her first day on the job as Boss Hogg's secretary. She's got her own little desk sittin' there in front of Boss's office, even, complete with anold ricketytypewriter that Boss dragged out of the closet. Ain't he nice?**

Eve was alone in the courthouse, still staring dumbfoundedly at the enormous stack of paperwork that had been laid on her desk. It would take her _weeks_ to file all that! She picked up one piece of paper, finally, and noticed it was some sort of Bill of Sale. She picked up another one---Bill of Sale. If all these papers were the same thing, her boss (no pun intended) sure did own quite a lot for one man.

Having no clue where to start first, Eve picked up a handful of documents and placed them in front of her to skim through. Just as she suspecting, all Bills of Sale. She figured she might have to file them according to the dates on the paper, starting with the first and ending with the most recent. Which meant she had to go through every single paper and---oh, Lord.

_RING! RING!_

The sudden telephone ringing nearly scared Eve out of her skin, but she retained posture and answered the call. Boss had one on the same line in his office, but seeing how he wasn't there, Evewas required to do the answering."Hazzard County Courthouse, this is Eve Willows speaking."

"I need to speak to Boss Hogg,"a deep, gruff voice stated simply. "It's urgent."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hogg isn't here at the time. May I take a message?"

She thought she heard a series of cursing on the other end of the line. The man finally responded, "Just tell him to call Rick Terry. He knows the number." _Click_!

Eve gave the phone a funny look before setting back on the holder, as if she couldn't believe someone was actually rude enough to hang up on her. She then continued to shift through some of the papers when suddenly a face appeared from behind the stacks.

"Hi, Evie!"

"AAAUGH!" she screeched, rolling back in her chair from the shock and held her hand to her heart. "Cooter Davenport, you little sneak! Scared the bejeepers outta me."

"Sorry, cuz," the covered-in-grease mechanic apologized. "I was just droppin' in to see how ya were doin'." He picked up one of her unfiled papers and raised his eyebrows. "Huh, didn't know he owned _that_."

Eve had her arms crossedand got to the point."Cooter, you might would've told me on the phone that the Pillsbury Doughboy wasn't going to hire me as a lawyer when I talked to you about moving here."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Hey, you just asked me if it was be _easy_ to get _a_ job, you didn't specify _what kind_ of job. But _look, _ya got afancy desk with the deal." He came around to sit on the edge of it and played with a few buttons on the typewriter. "But ya got a bad deal on this thing, that _p _button don't work."

"Cooter," Eve stated in an aggravated voice, not liking it when the subject got changed.

"What? Okay, okay, I'm sorry I didn't tell ya what a uptight guy Boss is about hirin' certain people."

She continued to stare at him.

"Aw, come on, Evie, don't be that way. Hey, remember long time back at one of them reunion things, me and you were playin' tag in the yard and you fell down in the mud and we started having a mudfight? That was _fun_, one of the good ol' days, wasn't it?"

"Cooter, you had grabbed my hairbow and made me chase you through a pigpen where you _pushed _me into a big pile of---"

He held up his hand. "Guilty as charged, but it was _fun_ wasn't it?" He gave her his signature grin and even batted his eyes a few times for added measure. Eve kept on with the mad look for a few seconds, then lightened up and laughed.

"Cooter, I just can't stay mad at you, can I?"

"At _me, _your _favorite_ cousin? That ain't possible!" He patted her on the hand. "Hey, when you get a lunchbreak, call me up and I'll bring ya somethin' over, okay?"

* * *

**Three Hours Later**

Eve had managed to get about atenth of her filing work done. She had found every piece of paper that had last year printed on the page---1986---and organized _those_ papers by month and date. She wasmighty proud of herself as she straightened up the stack when the sound of a door opening and footsteps came into hearing.

"Well, well, well, Miss Willows, how is that filin' comin' along?" the cheery voice of Boss Hogg rang before his face actually appeared.

Eve forced a smile. "I've got everything with 1986 on it all ready to get put up."

"Good, good, that's a good start. I bought a _lot_ of stuff last year. You keep on with however you're doing it."

"Oh, and you got a telephone call from a Mr. Rick Terry. He said you knew his number."

Boss's face nearly matched his suit when he heard the name but then the color back came to him nearly quickly and said, "Why, thank you, Miss Willows. I'll just take the call in my office." Then with a different tone altogether, he barked, "Rosco, come on."

* * *

"What do you _mean_, we're in trouble?" Boss asked aggravatedly over the phone, Rosco leaning down trying to listen to every word that passed between them. 

_"A couple of guys were snoopin' around the hideout earlier. Some blond kid and an slightly older guy with dark hair. They got away in some crazy lookin' orange car_."

"Orange car?" Boss softly exclaimed, not wanting to draw any attention from Eve sitting outside the door. "Why, I wonder who would want to drive such an outlandishly colored vehicle?"

"Oooh, I know, Boss!" Rosco said excitedly. "The Du--"

Boss elbowed the sheriff's stomach to make him be quiet and gave him a silencing look before continuing his conversation with Rick Terry.

_"I don't care, I just know that they suspect somethin' and they probably could remember what I look like. I got in a wrestlin' match with one of them and the other got the car to pick up his buddy. I shot at 'em a couple of times, but they drove off faster than I could possibly follow 'em."_

"You _shot _at 'em! No, no, no, I will _not _have shootin' in my county! Now lookie, here. My sheriff, Rosco, will gladly go out and try to find this orange car of yours and question whoever's drivin' it. You don't worry about a thing."

_"I better not ever see them boys again, 'cause if I do, I'm reporting you to the Feds and _you'll_ be the only one gettin' busted for this scam."_

**Balladeer: And I believe 'im, too!**

Rick hung up and Boss slammed his phone onto the receiver. "Oh, those rotten Duke boys, why is it that they always show up at my hideouts and find out what's goin' on!" He turned towards Rosco. "And why weren't _you_ there to chase 'em off when they came near that road that said hideout is on, ya numbskull!"

Rosco had his hat in his hand, playing with the rim of it as he sometimes did when getting fussed at. "Er, well, Boss, I was---"

"Oh, never mind, it was probably somethin' stupid anyhow." Boss arose from his desk chair and grabbed his hat from the coat-rack and stormed out, Rosco following him tender-footedly. He knew better than to make Boss mad when he was already in a foul mood.

Eve had a little sign on her desk saying, "Be back in five minutes", and apparantly those five minutes were not up yet. Boss figured she was taking a restroom break, so he didn't say anything about her leaving her post. He took his hat off and fanned himself.

"Phew, it is hotter than a cathouse in here," he muttered. "Rosco, before you leave to go waste gas in that car of yours, open up a few windows to get the air circulatin'. Stupid air conditioner must be busted. And then I want you to find those Dukes and arrest them for trespassin'!"

"Yes, sir, Boss," Rosco stated. "I'll cuff 'em and stuff 'em and throw away the key!"

"You better not, I ain't buying a new one," Boss grumbled as he exited the courthouse.

As soon as he did so, Rosco ran over to the windows to open them, seeing as he was told to do so. A cool breeze happened by at that moment, bringing some relief from the summer heat.

**Balladeer: I don't think I woulda done that if I were him . . . **

"Oh, Sheriff Coltrane!" Eve's voice tiredly said from the doorway.

_Uh-oh, what did I do?_ Rosco thought as he turned around and then realized what he _did _do. The breeze that had come inhad completely messed up everything that Eve had done in the past three hours, more than half of the papers scattered around the room.

**Balladeer: See what I meant?**

"Ooh, that's an horrendous mess," he muttered to himself.

Eve had a hand over her head as if she just gotten a headache and looked as if she were going to cry. Now Rosco couldn't stand the sight of a crying woman, especially when it was his fault she was crying, so he decided he'd better make amends before the water works started.

"_Please_, don't cry, Miss Willows," he said, going and patting her back. "I'm real sorry, I didn't mean for that to happen. Boss told me to open up the windows 'cause it was---"

"It's all right, Sheriff," Eve told him, wiping the dampness from under her bottom eyelashes. "I probably needed to double-check things anyway," she added, trying to make herself feel a little better.

Rosco still felt bad about it though. "Hey, listen---I'm fixin' to go on patrol here in a minute, ummm, you want me to pick you up some lunch or somethin'? My treat?"

At the mention of a free meal from a man she'd barely known, Eve gave him the most puzzled look, as if he'd just asked her to go smoke pot with him out back. After having a rocky marriage, Eve had been having a hard time trusting other men, no matter how nice they may seem---especially the ones that offered to buy her stuff. To her, that was just the starting point of a set up.

"Uh . . . no, that's all right," she answered him slowly, getting the old feeling of suspicion building in her gut. "My cousin's supposed to be bringing me something. Thanks, though."

Roscolooked a little disappointed that he couldn't think of anything else to do to prove he was sorry, so he just said, "Well, okay then. I_am_real sorry." He started backing out the door. "If ya need anything, just holler on the CB---well, not really _holler_---you know what I mean. Take care."

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okay, that's all ofchappie five, hope y'all enjoyed, and **_PLEASE REVIEW_**! 


	6. Runnin' From the Law

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but here's chapter six at last!

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**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Six: Runnin' From the Law**

**Balladeer: Not too long after Bo and Luke had convinced the girls to keep quiet about the lil' adventure they'd had earlier, the boysdropped them off at their own house and went to tell their Uncle Jesse and cousin Daisy about everythin' that had happened. **

"An' ya say ya heard _voices _underneath the barn?" Jesse asked his nephews with a doubtful look on his face. "Sounds a lil' farfetched to me."

"We're tellin' the truth, Uncle Jesse," Bo insisted, leaning up against the side of their tractor. "Me an' Luke heard people talkin' from beneath the floor!"

"Who's crazy enough to want to run an operation underground?" Daisy asked to no one in particular as she shifted the basket of freshly dried laundry from one hip to another. "Are y'all sure Boss is in on it?"

"Who else _would _be?" Luke pointed out as he sat on the woodpile next to Jesse. "Boss is into everything that goes on in this county, why not this? Now if them fellas are in with Boss, more than likely they are, they probably already called 'im up and Rosco's on his way over right now to arrest us for some kind of bogus charge."

"Y'all got a plan to figure this out yet?" Daisy asked.

"I figure that whatever's goin' on, it's something slightly big. Me an' Bo need more time to figure things out and get to the bottom of this. Which means we might have to hide out for a while."

"Hide out, are ya crazy?" Jesse scolded. "If you boys just suddenly disappear, J.D. and Rosco might think you've fled the county an' _that _wouldn't do y'alls probation any good."

"Uncle Jesse, it's all right," Bo assured him. "Me an' Luke can take care of ourselves. We'll just lay low somewhere an' crack whatever's goin' on an' be home before ya know it."

"I just want to now where y'all think y'all are gonna go," Jesse scowled slightly. "Surely, not with those two girls you've been runnin' with. May I add that I haven't even _met _them yet?"

Bo gave his uncle his famous Bo-smile. "Now what's that you used to say to us when we was kids? Patience is a virtue?"

"Don't go usin' my lessons against me now."

"Why don't y'all stay with Cooter?" Daisy offered up, trying to steer the conversation back to its original roots. "He'd love to help y'all out, y'know."

"That would work except we already told Ali and Rachel not to mention anything to him themselves," Bo explained, rubbing the back of his neck. "They're cousins."

"Oh, these is _Cooter's _family," Jesse mumbled, as if that explained how things were with the girls.

"If _we _mention anything to Cooter and he lets it slip to the girls, they might get mad at us," Bo continued.

"Awww, y'all can't handle a couple of angry females?" Daisy grinned. Bo gave her a mock smile as if he were saying, "ha ha, real funny."

"How 'bout we not worry about it until wegot proofthat y'all are really in some kind of trouble," Jesse had to suggest.

Luke looked up the driveway. "I think that's your proof right there."

What Luke had seen was Rosco's patrol car pulling up towards the house, his red-and-blue lights twinkling all the while, meaning he was here on official business. The sheriff pushed the door open, got out and straightened up his gun belt and then promptly slammed the door shut.

"Alllll right, you Dukes, you're under arrest!"

"Help us out here," Bo told him with a playful smile on his face. "I'm afraid we missed the part where we actually did somethin' wrong."

"Don't play games with me, you know why I'm here. Y'all were a-trespassin' on private property an' now it's off to the clinker with ya!"

Daisy walked up to Rosco, still holding her laundry basket, and sweetly asked, "Now, Rosco, we was all just about to go inside and have dinner. Can't they have one last little meal before you lock 'em up? In fact, you can join if ya like."

Rosco's serious-cop face disappeared and was replaced with his usual gullible-goofball face. "Oh, really, that's awful nice of ya---"

"Here's the main course!" Daisy yelled, lifting her arms and dumping the entire basket of cleaned clothes all over the sheriff's head, causing him to go blind for a minute.

Bo and Luke understood this as a cue for them to run, so they did. Bo jumped into the driver's seat, Luke slid across the hood and climbed in on his side, and they took off out of the yard.

"Oooh, that tears it!" Rosco fussed as he tried to untangle himself from the mess of shirts, pants, and whatever else he happened to be throwing to the ground. "You Dukes are—get back here, you're under arrest!" His legs were kept from moving by a pair of Jesse's overalls wrapped around him, but that didn't stop him from trying to get back into his police car. He kicked the infernal things off and slammed the door, revving up the engine. "Buckle up, Flash, we're on hot pursuit!"

Meanwhile, Bo and Luke were well ahead of the sheriff, or thought they were for it didn't take too long for him to show up in the reflective mirrors. Bo switched gears on the General to make him go a little faster and swerved to take a shortcut down a little road. A dead tree lay in the road, probably knocked over by the wind.

"Bo, look out for that tree!" Luke shouted, grabbing a hold of the door and tightening up his muscles.

Bo somehow managed to get the General to make a short leap over the log, landing somewhat gracefully on the other side of it. Rosco wasn't so lucky. His car ran head-on into that fallen tree, making the front-end of his car scrunch up like an accordian and busting the mess out of his windshield. Luckily, he wasn't hurt (and neither was Flash), but he was sure mad as he kicked the door open and started doing is usual ranting.

But Bo and Luke had already disappeared from view, leaving only a trail of dust behind. Luke had looked back through the window and acknowledged that Rosco appeared to be okay, giving Bo the go-ahead to continue on.

"All right, now that _he's_out of the way, what're we gonna do?" Bo had to ask.

"Good question. It's getting late, let's head on back to the farm to grab a bite then just call somebody up and ask if we can stay a while with them."

"I'd like to know _who_."

Balladeer: I'd like to know who, too. If they ain't gonna stay with Cooter, who they say can't know anythin' about what's happenin', they got limited choices. And they can't stay with Ali and Rachel, 'cause their sister doesn't have a _clue_ what's goin' on and don't need to 'cause she's workin' with Boss and Rosco. 'Sides, I doubt she'd agree to lettin' a couple of boys come live under her roof, no matter how good they are.

"You lost 'em _again_?" Boss roared, flinging his white hat to the floor of his office in a fury. He hated it when things didn't go his way. "Of all the lame-brained, lousy, numb-skulled—"

"But, Boss, it wasn't my fault, see—them Dukes, they somehow pushed that tree in the road—"

"Hogwash! Even the Dukes aren't so good they can push a tree over while drivin! There's no tellin' where they might be hidin' out! And you better find 'em, Rosco, or believe you me I'll cut your pay in _half_!"

"In . . . . half, Boss?" the sheriff gulped, definitely not wanting _that_to happen.

"If you don't leave my office immediately, I'll cut it in half _again_! Now get movin'!"

He threw some sort of object at the wall in order to get the man going, who had definitely decided that being outside hunting Dukes was much better than dealing with Boss when he was angry.

"Come on, Enos, we got work to do," he said to his deputy, who was also the most honest lawman in these here parts. He glared at him when he saw that he wasn't paying him any attention. "And stop harassing Miss Willows, she don't need you jibber-jabberin' while she's tryin' to pack up to go home."

"Oh, I was just introducin' myself, Sheriff."

"Well, introduce yourself and let's go!" he fussed, then with a different tone altogether, "S'cuse us, Miss Willows," as they headed out the door.

Balladeer: While this was goin' on, Daisy had thought of somebody that the boys could lay low with and try to solve the case while hidin' from Boss and Rosco. At first, they all thought she was crazy, but she talked 'em into givin' it a chance, so Daisy called 'im over on the CB.

"You want me to _what_?" Enos asked in a high-pitched voice as Daisy explained the situation to him. "I like y'all a whole bunch, Daisy, but if Sheriff and Mr. Hogg ever find out that I was----harboring criminals, as they'd say—I'd lose my job for sure!"

"They're not gonna find out, Enos, you're the last person they'd expect Bo and Luke to be boardin' with," Daisy told him.

"But what about Cooter, they've stayed with _him_ before!"

"It's kinda difficult," Daisy replied, giving Bo and Luke a look that seemed to ask the same question that Enos had. "But, Enos, everything will be a-okay as long as you don't spill the beans that they are with you."

"Now, Daisy, if Enos doesn't feel comfortable lettin' us come stay with him," Luke started off. "We don't have a right to force him."

Bo gave his cousin an amazed look. "Y'know, that sounded like Uncle Jesse when you said that."

"But, Luke, who else y'all think's gonna let y'all stay with 'em for a few days?" Daisy tried to protest, but the look she got from Luke got her quiet.

"It's all right, Enos," Luke told the deputy. "Sorry, Daisy, tried to drag ya into our troubles. We know you have a job to do, so we'll leave it to ya. If ya have to arrest us, go ahead." He held his arms out as if waiting to be handcuffed.

Enos gave him a look that had confusion written all over it, then gave a nervous glance over his shoulder, and sighed. "Dog-gone it, y'all are my best friends, I ain't gonna arrest y'all for something I don't even know about. Y'all can come stay with me, if y'all want to."

"Ya sure, Enos, 'cause we don't want to be any problem—"

"Shucks, Bo, it ain't no problem, I'd do anything for y'all. I've got plenty of space in the livin' room for y'all to sleep in, if that's fine."

"That's better than fine, sure beats sleepin' on the ground somewhere," Bo remarked.

"Thank you, Enos, you're such a sweetheart," Daisy smiled, giving him a small kiss on the mouth. Enos thought he'd pass out.

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There ya have it, and please review!


	7. Under the Surface

**A/N: If you've noticed, I did change the summary, but it's the same story. I'd already planned on a sequel for this, but after reading something in the local newspaper then having a wild dream about it, I decided to go ahead and write a third story, thus the reason why I have "part one of three" in the summary. Anyways, enough babble, here's chapter seven!

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**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Seven: Under the Surface**

**Balladeer: After Enos had agreed for Bo and Luke to stay with him for a while, the boys decided to go on one last night run with the General for a few days and take Ali and Rachel to a clearing in the woods where it's real good for star-watchin'—which happens to be not too far from that barn they heard that Bo and Luke heard the voices coming from earlier.**

"Oh, wow!" Rachel gasped in awe as she saw a shooting star go flying across the midnight sky. "Did ya see that?"

They were sitting on the hood of the General, heads tossed back in order to view the stars. A few moments later, another shooting star came soaring, a white streak faintly lighting the sky. Everybody went "ooooh" in admiration then started laughing about it.

Bo tapped Rachel on the arm, which was who he was sitting beside. "Hey, ya like fireflies? I know where a whole mess of 'em are down in the woods."

Rachel's eyes lit up. "Okay," she said, jumping off the hood with Bo. She hadn't grown used to the dark surroundings yet, so she ended up grabbing his hand in order for him to lead her.

"Stay outta trouble!" Luke called out to them once they were completely out of sight, just imagining Bo turning around and giving him a look that said, "Yeah, _real _cute."

"Your sister don't really say that much," Luke remarked to Ali, who was sitting to his right. "It's kinda hard seeing you two as even bein' _related_ to each other."

"Yeah, well, she's been like that since our parents died," the girl replied without much hesistation. "She used to be as crazy as I was, almost, but then she got all tore up about Mom and Dad. She was there, y'know—or ya might not know—when it happened."

Luke gave her a startled look. "Really?"

"Yeah," Ali said, lighting up a cigarette. "They were all comin' back from Miami—our parents liked goin' out of town on business and stuff. Rachel never hardly saw them and when they invited her along, it was a golden opportunity for her to get to spend time with them. But then they were drivin' back and some diesel-truck driver fell asleep at the wheel, skidded into the other lane where Mom and Dad were drivin' and hit them head-on. They were killed instantly, they say, but Rachel got away with a concussion and a few broken bones. Ever since, she's just been real quiet and kept to herself. She's kinda upset that she don't know that much about Mom and Dad on a personal level, too."

She took in a puff of her cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. "Poor kid. I've been tryin' to get her to loosen up and live a little, but _Eve_ is bent on raisin' her all serious like. She had to take Rachel in when the accident happened. Rachel was like fifteen and Eve was, I think, twenty-four and the only one of us with a steady job. I moved out of my boyfriend-at-the-time's apartment and started livin' with Eve after about two years and we've all been together ever since."

"Same thing sorta happened to me, Bo, and our cousin Daisy. Our parents all died and we ended up livin' with our Uncle Jesse. I went off to the Marines after high school, but ended up comin' back here. In love with country, I guess."

"You were a Marine?" Ali asked, looking him over and trying to picture him in a uniform.

Luke nodded. "Sergeant."

"My ex was in the Navy."

Luke shook his head. "Never liked 'em."

"Yeah? Me neither."

A minute passed before they busted out laughing. Ali even had tears running down her face. "You country folk are pretty crazy, ya know that?"

"You city girls are pretty fruity yourselves," Luke kidded back.

"Hey, ya haven't even met Eve yet. One day when you do, you'll see that she's kinda hard-boiled at times but then she'll get all flighty on ya. I haven't decided if she's crazier or I am."

"You're not crazy. You're just—unique."

Ali gave him an amused look. "Is that the same thing as fruity?"

"No, it just means that you see life differently than everyone else—I don't know, like life isn't really a challenge, it's more of a game. Plus, come on, what other girl has the guts to bob her hair like the 1920's flappers?"

Ali looked up at her bangs then chuckled. "I guess it's pretty wild for this day and age. But I don't like to fit in with the majority. Not many girls run around smokin' and drinkin' anymore, it seems." She finished up her cigarette and chunked it on the ground. "You gonna tell the crazy sheriff I did that?"

"I wouldn't tell him _anything_ about _anything_."

**Balladeer: Now while they were laughin' it up and conversin', Bo and Rachel were still on their way to find some of Bo's pet fireflies. **

"Be careful, there's a tree root right _here_," Bo warned Rachel as he stepped over the extruding root safely, then leading her with his hand where to step off at. She was still having trouble adjusting her eyes to the dark. "It's not much farther now."

"Either you have good night-vision or you just know where everything is 'round here."

"Kinda both. Me and Luke, we used to roam these parts all day long when we were kids. Then we got the General and just drove everywhere, but we still have—geographical intelligence, as Luke would say," he told her.

"I wish we'd grown up someplace like this. All I remember is the city, and every now and then our parents would take us to a lake house for about two weeks out of the summer. Seems like those were the only times they would bother spendin' any time with us."

They way she said it told Bo that something must have happened to her parents, so he decided that he'd stay off the subject. "I wasn't ever real fond of the city. I like visitin' time and again, but I prefer things they way they are right here in Hazzard." He chuckled to himself. "Although at times, things get so crazy around here, we might as well_ call_ it a city. Careful there's a big ol' rock. A really _big_ rock—hey, where'd this thing come from?"

Rachel stood beside Bo as he inspected the giant rock that he never remembered seeing in this part of the county. He was sure he would have noticed it before, back when he and Luke used to roam around on foot. He kicked it with his shoe and noticed that it budged a little—as if it wasn't that heavy.

"Well, that's strange," he said, bending down to push the rock forward, which did so with ease.

"What is it?" Rachel asked. "Is it even real?"

"I think its some kinda heavy plastic," Bo told her, scratching his head. "It's just disguised as a rock."

_Like Eve's biscuits_, Rachel thought light-heartedly to herself.

Bo stepped around the area where the "rock" had been. "Now what on earth? Some kinda door here?"

He bent down and indeed found a door handle and pulled up on it. What he got was a huge hole with a ladder going down into what might be a dark tunnel. Bo had a bad feeling about it.

**Balladeer: Now how do ya figure that? That sure didn't get there naturally.**

**Now, Bo and Rachel plumb forgot about them fireflies and went racing back to the General to tell Ali and Luke what they found. The four of 'em went back to where Bo had found the fake rock and the door that led underground. The only thing they could decide to do was go down there and see where it led—actually it was Luke's idea, but everybody else agreed.**

"Is this tunnel ever going to end?" Ali asked, coughing from the stuffiness. "We've been down here for, what, an hour?"

"Five minutes," Luke responded, a small smile on his face. "I think I see somethin' up ahead."

"What's up with guys and seein' in the dark?" Rachel asked rhetorically as Luke jogged ahead a few feet.

"It's a door!" Luke called out to them as they made their way to where he was standing.

"Another one?" Bo asked, putting his hands on his hips as if to stand there and ponder it.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Ali muttered to herself, remembering the child-hood tale about the little girl named Alice that, in one instance, found herself opening one door after another and each one getting smaller and smaller as she went on.

"What ya reckon's back there?" Bo asked his cousin.

"I don't know, but we're fixin' to find out," Luke said determinedly, slowly opening the door which led to more darkness. He fumbled around for few seconds then bumped into something. "What the—?" He felt around and found something lying on a flat surface—an oil lamp. "Hey, Ali, can I borrow your cigarette lighter?"

She dug in her back pocket. "Sure, but why?" she asked, a little shocked when he took it from her hand since she couldn't see him anywhere.

"And the Lord said let there be light," Luke muttered as he struck the lighter and lit up the wick of the lamp, giving an even glow to wherever it was that they were.

"Holy cow!" Bo exclaimed as he looked around. "Where the heck are we?"

"What _are_ those—contraptions?" Ali asked, pointing at two huge machines.

"If I'd have to guess," Luke started off. "I'd say those were counterfeit money machines—somehow powered by an underground electric line or something—and we're underneath that old barn on Sassafras Lane."

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Okay, stayed tuned for chapter seven, and PLEASE REVIEW! Reviews make me happy---VERY happy . . . :) :) :) 


	8. Friends

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Seven: Friends**

Bo was having some sort of dream involving him driving the General in a NASCAR race. He was about to speed past Richard Petty when an irritating buzzing noise entered the picture. Slowly, the dream became fuzzy and Bo awakened to reality. At first he was a little confused because he sensed he wasn't in his own bed or in his own room. He opened to his eyes to see himself stretched out on some couch and Luke sleeping peacefully in a reclining chair.

_Oh yeah,_ he thought glumly, throwing a pillow over his head when a light switched on the adjacent kitchen, but not before glancing tiredly at the wall clock hanging over the fireplace mantel. Five in the morning.

"Hey, Bo?" he heard someone whisper. "You awake?"

Bo let the pillow down carefully and saw Enos looking at him with a happy-morning face.

"I thought so. Sorry if I woke ya. Mr. Hogg likes us to be on the road as soon as humanly possible."

"Yeah? I say let me sleep as long as humanly possible," the blond muttered mainly to himself.

* * *

**Ten o'clock AM—Courthouse**

"Now, Rick, stop worryin'," Boss rasply whispered on the phone so his secretary wouldn't overhear the conversation. Of course, all she had to do was just pick up her own phone to listen in to both sides, but he had a feeling she wouldn't. "I've got my boys lookin' for 'em as we speak." He covered the bottom part of the telephone to mute out what he was about to say. "Rosco, ya sure they weren't at the farm?"

"Sure am, Boss, nowhere in sight," Rosco told him, the sheriff on the other side of the phone trying to hear what was going on.

Boss grumbled something then started talking to Rick Terry again. "What's that? Whattya mean it looks like somebody's done messed with that big fake rock? How would anyone know it was fake, and why would they get the bright idea to move it to see a hidden door?"

Pause.

"Look, the reason you're using that certain entrance instead of the barn entrance is 'cause you're scared of gettin' caught, correct? Well, stupid, here's what you do. All of you go down the rock entrance, leave one man behind to cover the door with pinestraw and leaves, then have him sneak through the barn entrance. That way y'all want get trapped down there with just one entrance to go through–and that'd be the obvious one. Now, if you please, I have other work to do!"

He slammed the phone on the hook and growled to himself. "Rosco, you had better find them Dukes, 'cause I'm thinkin' that they might-a found somethin' they weren't supposed to find."

"You talkin' about that horrendously disguised rock?"

"No, bone-head, I mean I think that they went down that tunnel and found my money-making machines!" he tried to not to scream and holler so that Eve wouldn't hear.

Flash, Rosco's dog, growled at the little man in the white suit that was fussing at her owner. She always had a tendency to do that.

"And why's that stupid mutt in my office? Get her outta here before she goes loco and attacks me."

Knowing Flash never would charge at anyone, but knowing that Boss _would_, Rosco opened the door a crack so the dog could exit onto the main floor. "There ya go, velvet ears," he said in a soft voice as she scampered out of the room. "Daddy'll be out in a sec."

The door closed and Flash was standing on the floor staring at Eve with big brown eyes. The lady had managed to get 1985 Bills of Sale out of her way, after rearranging 1986's, and was now working on 1980—who cared what order she went in, just as long as it got done. Flash felt a little lonely and whined at her. Eve turned her head, her face changing from a"I'm-busy-leave-me-the-heck-alone" lookto a "oh-my-gosh-ain't-you-the-cutest-thing" look.

"Well, hello there," she said with a big smile on her face, leaning over in her chair and looking towards the side. "Girl?"

Flash did a somewhat skip-and-a-leap and situated herself in Eve's lap. She knows a good girl when she senses one.

"You're awful friendly," Eve said, half-talking to the dog and half to herself, rubbing her extra long ears. "Where'd you come from, I didn't even see ya come in." She checked the tags on the collar. "Whatcha say, Flash, we friends?"

Flash responded by reaching her head up and licking the woman on the nose, who just chuckled at it.

**Balladeer: Looks like Flash has a new member in her fan club.**

"Boy, I bet you're owner spoils you rotten, huh?"

The office door swung open suddenly and Boss came charging out, Rosco right behind him. Boss looked upset about something, which Eve found to be a consistent mood with him.

"And furthermore, if you fail to bring me them boys _one more time_, I'm gonna---"

Apparently, Flash didn't like the fact that Boss was yelling, because she promptly howled at him, causing Boss to turn and say in a loud voice,

"OH! And that flea-bitten hound of yours has done attacked my secretary!"

Rosco looked a bit worried that Boss might do something to his dog, twiddling with the bottom of his tie, and he gave Eve a look that seemed to ask for help on this matter. Thankfully, she seemed to get it.

"She's not botherin' me any, Mr. Hogg," she told him, rubbing the dog's head to calm her. "She's as sweet as pie, aren't you dear?"

"See, Boss, she's behavin---"

"I don't care, I'm sick an' tired of her always barkin' at me all the time!" Boss hollered, giving the dog a glare.

"A-ROOOO!"

"Flash, darlin', you can stop now," Rosco seemed to half-plead with his upset pet. "Come here to Daddy."

The over-weight Basset jumped off of Eve's lap and trotted to her owner who heaved her up into his arms as best he could. Eve couldn't help but think how cute that was.

"Now that you mongrel's under control," Boss stated in an irritated voice, "Get to work!"

"A-ROOO!"

"She's not a mongrel, Flash is a highly trained police dog," Rosco argued with him stubbornly. "And you're hurtin' her highly sensitive ears with all that yellin'."

"Oh, please, _I'm_ more police dog that _she_ is," Boss huffed, rolling his eyes.

**Balladeer: Well, he _is_ a dog, but I wouldn't say _police_ dog . . . **

"Did anyone happen to drop in while we were busy?" Boss asked Eve, still in a sour mood. Rosco was trying to rock his distressed dog in his arms so she'd be more relaxed and comfortable, and not so likely to howl and get him in even more trouble.

Eve pretended to think at Boss's question, looking up and rubbing her chin at the same time. "Yeah---some guy named---" She looked at her notepad, which was really blank of course. "Satan---Satan dropped by. Big red guy with horns and a tail. Said he was complainin' that he couldn't hear the residents of Hell's tortured screaming because some guy in a white suit was drowning out the noise by---" She looked at her notepad again. "Ah---persistent and earth-shattering shouting."

Rosco started laughing. Not the usual chuckle either, we're talkin' _laughing_.

Boss gave Eve a blank look as if he couldn't believe someone had just replied to him in a smart-aleck tone. Eve gave him an equally blank look as well, then blinked a few times before saying,

"Tea?"

Boss blinked. "What?"

"Tea," she repeated, holding up her pitcher of homemade tea she had brought from home. "It calms the nerves. I think you need some." As if to state a point, she took a sip of some from her little cup she had with her.

Boss closed his eyes, trying not to jump up and rip his hair out and say blasphemies in the presence of a woman, and then slowly went back into his office and shut the door. Eve smiled slyly to herself.

**Balladeer: Folks, you just witnessed history. Boss has never left a room without havin' the last word before.**

Rosco looked a little nervous being in a room alone with this crazy chick that had probably just saved his job and his dog's nerves, shifted his arms to support Flash a little better and said,

"Um, thanks, for uh---you know."

"It's no problem. I'm a dog person myself. Besides, he was hurtin' _my_ ears, too." _No_, she thought to herself. _A guy with a dog can't be that bad. They say people with dogs are supposed to be trust-worthy._ "You want some tea?"

He was a little surprised at the offer. "Um, no thanks---I don't really drink it. Thanks though, uh, Miss Willows."

"Oh, you can call me Eve if you want."

Rosco wasn't even sure if he had even known her first name when he met her. "Okay, _Eve_. Um, you can call me Rosco, and you've already met Flash here." The dog wagged her tail when she heard her name mentioned.

"She's awful sweet, where'd you get her?"

"I, uh, ordered her from a police catalog."

"Oh, so she's really a police dog, huh?"

"Well, sometimes she can be. Mostly she just sleeps in the car," he had to admit. He pretended to be surprised at the time. "Oh, well, look at the time," he grinned, backing up towards the door that led outside. "Better get to drivin' before ol' Boss comes after me with a pink slip."

"Good idea. Have fun."

"Okay," he smiled, bumping into a table as he was still backing up, which nearly scared the pants off him. Eve hid a smile under her hand, and Rosco gave her an embarrassed grin and tried to kick the table back into its original place. "There's a---there's a table there, ya might wanna watch out for that---when ya leave---okay, I'm goin' now."

**Balladeer: Just when I thought Rosco's brains couldn't get any more scrambled . . . **

* * *

. . . see the little menu at the bottom left? Good, good . . . it says "submit review", yes? Go to the little menu---see the little button that says "go"? Good, now _push_ the little "go" button and leave a little review that will make me very happy. (rubs hands together in an evil fashion) yes . . . very happy . . . (: 


	9. Can't Fight the Feelin', Part One

**A/N: Here's chapter nine! Keep the reviews comin' in, they really make my day!

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**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Nine: Can't Fight the Feelin', Part One**

"Rosco, for the last time," Cooter argued tiredly while standing in the door of his garage. "I don't know where Bo and Luke are! I haven't seen 'em in days!"

"That's a lie, an' we both know it! Everybody knows they're your best friends, and ya probably got 'em hid in that shop of yours!"

"Which you won't find out, 'cause ya ain't comin' in withouta search warrant!"

Rosco muttered something incomprehensible under his breath, aggravated and stressed out over this "Duke Hunt" that Boss had him on. "Cooter, I swear, you make me so---"

**BOOM**

Rain started drizzling out of the sky, Cooter safe and dry in his garage and ol' Rosco standing out in it getting soaked by the minute. Cooter gave him a grin and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Might wanna move there, Rosco, don't want youcatchin' a death of cold."

**

* * *

**

Eve dropped her two sisters off in town while she was on her way to work. It had just started to rain and luckily the girls had their umbrellas with them.

"Now, remember, no funny business," Eve warned them as they got out. "Stay here in town and when five o'clock rolls around, y'all come see me at the courthouse so we can all go home, got it?"

"Yes, ma'am," Ali saluted her playfully, although she knew her older sister was being serious.

Eve rolled her eyes before she rolled up her window and drove off towards the courthouse. Ali grabbed Rachel's hand and made out like they were going inside a dress shop. Once Eve's car was out of sight, they snuck back out.

"Come on, sis, let's find that deputy's house and see Bo an' Luke," Ali said, dragging Rachel down the street.

"I feel kinda bad not tellin' Eve 'bout any of this," Rachel admitted in a guilty tone of voice. "I mean, she's our sister an'---"

"An' we were told to keep this stuff to ourselves," Ali finished for her. "We're old enough to have lives of our own, we don't need Mother Evelyn's permission to do things ourselves. Grow up, Rachel, geez."

* * *

**Balladeer: After Cooter's little run-in with Rosco, he decided to call down at the Boar's Nest to talk to Daisy and figure out what the heck was goin' on. See, he had no idea about the counterfeiters and _sure _didn't know that his two cousins were involved in whatever Bo and Luke were into. Well, Daisy felt obliged to tell him what was happenin', since she figured he had a right to know in the first place.**

"What!" Cooter exclaimed over the phone. "They got my two lil' cousins into this mess! I can't believe it!"

"Now, Cooter, y'know the boys never mean to get into stuff," Daisy told him in a calm voice. "An' the girls just happened to be with 'em when they found the counterfeiters' hideout."

The mechanic ran a hand through his hair. "Those fellas don't know who they are do they? I mean, I'm sure they saw Bo an' Luke, but what about the girls?"

"I'm not sure, I don't _think_ they saw your cousins. Don't worry about it, though, they're tryin' to take care of it. They're stayin' with someone while they figure things out and keep Boss an' Rosco off their tail."

"I _know _that, Rosco just got done lookin' for 'em over here. Where are those two scamps anyway?"

"Can't tell ya, Cooter, someone might overhear me," Daisy said. "But don't worry, everything's gonna be fine. I'll talk to ya later, all right?"

"Well, all right. Bye, Daisy, an' thanks."

"No problem, sugar. Bye." She hung up the phone and went over to where Enos was sitting by himself at a table in the corner. "Sorry, Enos, had to get that phone. Anyways, I just wanna thank you for lettin' the boys stay with ya for a while. It's awful sweet, an' I know you'd get in big trouble if Boss or Rosco found out."

Enos gave her a grin. "Shucks, Daisy, it's no problem. Although I don't think Bo liked waking up at five yesterday mornin'. Or _this_ mornin' either."

**BOOM!**

The lights started flickering in the Boar's Nest, causing some people to look around nervously. Daisy hoped the storm wouldn't be so bad that it would knock out the power.

**Balladeer: That storm sounds pretty bad, folks, I'm just gonna---uh---head for the house 'til it calms over. Keep an' eye on everybody for me.**

* * *

Bo and Luke, meanwhile were stuck in Enos' house for the day, as they were yesterday. They couldn't risk going outside in broad daylight, since Rosco would more than likely spot them. And with it raining outside, they couldn't even go out and lounge in the backyard.

Bo started flipping through the channels of the television, every picture having static. That meant that a big storm was coming up. He turned the TV off and tossed the remote on the couch.

_Ding-dong!_

Luke jumped from where he was sitting and put a finger to his lips as a sign to be quiet. Hoping it wasn't Rosco seeing if Enos was at his house, Luke snuck to the front door and looked through the peephole. When he saw who it was, he gave a sigh ofrelief and swung the door open.

"How did you girls manage to find this place?" he asked Ali and Rachel as they came inside,fixing their umbrellas so they could set them in the corner.

"We asked some guy on the street if he knew where a Deputy Strate lived at, and explained we were relatives comin' for a visit," Ali told him.She looked around and didn't see a hint ofthe feminine touch. "Ohyeah, definitely a bachelor."

**BOOM! BOOM**!

Rachel tensed up when the thunder sounded. Bo noticed andasked, "Don't like storms?"

"No," she answered quietly, going over and sitting on the couch next to him. "Boy, he sure keeps it cold in here," she remarked, referring to Enos when she said it.

Bo grabbed the afghan that was sittingon the bench next to them and wrapped it around here. "There, that better?"

Rachel smiled at him. "Yeah, thanks."

"Y'all want some coffee or anything?" Luke offered while he was still standing up.

"I'll take mine black, thanks," Ali told him. "I'll just come with ya."

* * *

Eve had filed away all the sales papers that she had sorted out for safe keeping and was busy working on the year 1970 (boy, this man sure owned a bunch of stuff!). She could hear the branches on the surrounding trees brushing up against the windows due to the storm outside. She personally loved the sound of rain beating against the roof of---well, buildings, cars, etc.

She heard somebody opening the door and looked up to see Rosco carrying Flash inside, both of them looking pretty wet. Rosco set Flash on the floor, who shook her fur dry and Rosco took off his hat to shake.

"Mornin', Eve," he smiled at her. "Um, ya mind if we stay in here 'til it stops rainin'? Flash doesn't like storms too much, it rattles her nerves," he explained, although it wasn't really _Flash_ that was afraid of storms.

"Sure," Eve said. "Pull up a chair. I was gettin' a little lonely anyhow. Mr. Hogg's gone home for his after-breakfast before-lunch meal, or whatever he calls it."

"Brunch?" he asked, taking a seat next to Eve's desk.

"That's it."

**BOOM! BOOM!**

Rosco shivered to himself hearing the thunder. No, he was definitely not a fan of storms. He only hoped that the lights didn't go out. He _really_ hated storms _and_ the dark at the same time.

Eve exchanged a look with Flash, who was sitting calmly in her owner's lap, as if they both knew that it wasn't _her _that was scared, but Eve didn't say anything about it.

* * *


	10. Can't Fight the Feelin', Part Two

**A/N: Okay, here's chappie ten! Happy Fourth of July!

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**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Ten: Can't Fight the Feelin', Part Two**

**CRACK-A BOOM!**

Power all across Hazzard County disappeared, leaving everyone briefly in the dark. Rachel screamed unexpectedly and threw herself on Bo, who wrapped his arms around her.

Luke sighed and got up from his seat. "Guess I better see if Enos has any candles or lamps. Ali, ya wanna come help?"

"Yeah, sure," she said, getting off the couch.

They both left to wander around the house, and Rachel still clung to Bo like a scared kid. She had some tears running down her face while he brushed her long brown hair with his fingers, trying to calm her down.

"It was rainin' real bad when—when the accident happened," she sobbed quietly. "It was thunderin' and lightenin', an' the truck hit us----and then they were gone."

Bo seemed to know that she was talking about her parents. Poor girl had been there when it happened. He gave her a tight hug.

"It's all right, Rach. I know how ya feel. My parents died in an accident, too, 'cept I was really little when it happened. At least you remember 'em. I don't recall nothin' 'bout mine."

Rachel wiped her eyes and she raised herself up to look into Bo's. "Yours are gone, too?"

"Yeah. Mine, Luke's, _and_ Daisy's. That's why we live with our Uncle Jesse. Luke remembers some stuff about his, Daisy don't remember much, and I don't remember _anything_." He put some of her hair behind her ears. "Besides, it don't do no good to think about the _bad_ stuff. Uncle Jesse always tells us to reminisce on the _good_ times y'all had."

"Well . . . there wasn't that much they ever did with us. But I suppose that what little time they spend with us, it was pretty fun. Like goin' to the lake." She was starting to feel better already.

"See, goin' to the lake," Bo smiled. "Think about that. Don't sit there and constantly think about them bein' gone all the time. If everybody in the world kept goin' back to the past, we'd never get anywhere forwards, huh?"

"I guess," she smiled. "Thanks, Bo."

They heard footsteps coming from the hallway and the shining light of an oil lamp filled the room. Luke and Ali emerged from the darkness and Luke set the lamp on the coffee table in front of the couch. The wind began to howl outside and rain beat against the window harder than it had been.

"Well," said Luke, plopping down in the recliner. "Guess we'll just have to entertain ourselves for a while." He pulled out a deck of cards from his back pocket. "Anybody up for Go Fish?"

* * *

When the lights went out, the Boar's Nest was filled with screaming customers. Daisy immediately started trying to calm everybody down, not wanting anyone to fall down or hurt themselves in the dark.

"Everyone, it's okay!" she assured them in a soothing voice. "Just stay where you are and don't wander around. I'll go find some lamps and candles. Enos, can I borrow your flashlight?"

"Sure, Daisy," he said, taking his flashlight that was hooked onto his gunbelt and handing it to her. "Be careful," he told her, as she flicked the light on and started heading towards the back where the stockroom was.

Everybody in the restaurant stayed where they were seated, but they continued to murmur to themselves about how much worse the storm was getting. It had been about five minutes since Daisy had disappeared when Enos heard a "THUMP!" and then Daisy going "Owww!".

"Daisy!" Enos called out worriedly, getting up and stumbling his way in the direction that Daisy had gone in. "Hang on, Daisy, I'm comin'!"

He found his way to the back and immediately spotted his flashlight shining from the ground and a dim image of Daisy lying on the floor grabbing her ankle. He sprang over to her.

"Daisy, what happened, you all right?"

She clenched her teeth in pain. "My ankle, I twisted it. I think it's sprained."

Enos stooped down and cradled her in his arms. "Here, let's get ya back up front."

"Wait, Enos, the candles. They're on the top shelf right above ya."

"I'll come back an' get 'em, but right now I need to get you back up front. Now calm down and let me handle things," Enos said in a firm, yet gentle, voice.

* * *

Rosco gave Flash a real tight squeeze when the power died in the courthouse. The storm was starting to sound worse and worse and time crawled on, which was never a good thing. He heard Eve sigh in discontent, since she was probably aggravated at the hindrance of not having light. 

"Rosco, y'all wouldn't happen to have any candles around, huh?"

He was so scared, he almost didn't comprehendwhat she said. Trying to stop himself from shaking so much, he replied, "Yeah---closet in the back."

She rolled out from behind her desk. "Well, you gonna let me borrow your flashlight, or do I have to find them blind?"

"Huh? OH! Sorry," he stammered, quickly handing her his light.

She mashed the button on the side to turn it on and headed off to the back to retrieve some candles. Rosco wished she hadn't done that---left him alone . . . in the dark . . . with the rain, thunder, and lightening getting harder and harder . . .

**BOOM! BOOM! CRACK-A BOOM!**

Flash started whining from being squeezed so hard, so Rosco had to release his grip on her a little bit. Branches started beating against thewindows from the outside bushes, rain hit the window like bullets, and thunder echoed off the walls. Rosco wished Eve would hurry up with them candles, he didn't know how much longer he could stand sitting in this chair without seeing anything.

After what felt like an hour, Rosco finally forced himself to get up and set Flash by herself on the chair. She simply stretched herself out and tried to get some sleep.

Rosco fumbled his way around to where he knew the back closet was, tensing up everytime the lightening flashed or the thundered roared. It was pitch black where there weren't any windows, which was definitely not a good thing.

He bumped into somebody and nearly shot out of his skin.

"_Jesus_, Rosco,you scared the dickens outta me!" he heard Evegasp in front of him. Good, it was only her. At least it wasn't someintruder that could be lurking about around here.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I just---well, I got kinda worried."

"I've only been gone for three minutes."

"Oh."

She smiled a little to herself. "There's only four of these tall candles here, so they'll have to do. And this lighter's barely got enough fluid in it to light a match with." She stood there for a minute in the dark holding everything in her arms. "Rosco."

"What?"

"Move. You're in the way."

Reality set in and Rosco managed to move himself out of her way so that she could walk. The lightening flashed again outside, faintly lighting the building. The thunder seemed to have quieted, thank God, but the rain was still going strong.

Rosco kept close behind Eve, not wanting to get stuck without having any source of light in his viewing distance.

**BOOOOOOOM!**

The enormously loud clap of thunder was enough to send Rosco into a state. Without thinking, he reached forward and grabbed Eve from behind and pulled her into a tight squeeze as if she were some sort of security blanket or something.

Eve almost screamed, but she refrained from doing so somehow. The shock of being grabbed like that sent her mind into a whirl. She could feel the sheriff shaking from being so scared and his heart was beating faster than it was supposed to.

_He must be _real_ scared_, she thought, trying to swallow some spit to try and quench her suddenly dry mouth.

"You okay back there?" she asked him raspily.

He didn't answer right away, but once his breathing got back somewhat to normal, he released his grip and replied, "Yeah . . . I guess . . . sorry 'bout that."

Still rattled, she remarked, "It's okay."


	11. Can't Fight the Feelin', Part Three

**A/N: Ta-da, chapter eleven!This one took me a good long time to write :)

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**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Eleven: Can't Fight the Feelin', Part Three**

"Got any three's, Luke?" Rachel asked as she held up her cards.

"Go fish."

"This is lame," Ali griped, which was what everybody else thought as well.

"Ooookay, then, what do _you_ propose we do?" Luke asked, throwing down his set of cards on the table.

Bo grinned. "Well, since I know what cards you got,_ I_ propose that I beat ya at this game for once. Let's see, ya got a queen—"

**BOOM!**

"I for one think we should think about those counterfeiter guys," Ali brought up, ignoring Bo's comment. "Why not stalk the guys one night, then ambush 'em somehow, and then turn 'em into the Feds?"

"That usually never works," Luke told her. "Trust me, Bo and I should know. Besides, we're not riskin' gettin' you girls hurt. What we _could_ do though is go back when there's nobody there, take some of the fake money, careful not to leave our fingerprints on it of course, and turn _that_ into the Feds. Then tell 'em where we got it, have _them_ bust the guys, and for once me and Bo don't get in trouble."

Bo pointed at his cousin. "I like the idea where we don't get in trouble."

"Then let's go!" Ali proclaimed.

Luke looked at her as if she'd just lost her mind. "What! Have you looked out the window recently? There's no _way_ I'm goin' out there!"

"Neither will the bad guys! They're not gonna be expectin' us to show up in _this_ weather," Ali continued on, getting excited.

"But what if they were down in the barn when the storm hit?" Rachel brought up. "They could be stuck down there for all we know."

"Point well taken," Luke complimented as Ali glared at her sister."Besides, we wouldn't be able to see well enough to drive. And even tomorrow, the roads will be so muddy we _still_ couldn't drive out there."

"Duh, leave the car somewhere and _walk_," Ali said stubbornly.

"You have any idea how _far_ it is to _walk_ out there?" Luke asked her, the two of them beginning tobicker. "It would take almost half an hour to do that!"

"From _where_ though?" Ali argued back. She lovedto argue---even if it looked like she was losing."It took us ten minutes to get there from where we were the other night."

"Fine, we'll just go back over there an' then sneak in the way we did the other night," Luke smiled. "But not today. Or tomorrow."

"Then _when_, come on, you're killin' me here."

"Day after tomorrow," Luke grinned.

"I'm gonna punch you, Luke Duke, if you don't get that wise-guy look off your face," Ali threatened playfully. She threw her cards at him in an equally playful way. "Since you ruined the game, _you_ can reshuffle."

"Y'all are more fun to watch than two bears fightin' over the same beehive," Bo noted. "Forget the game, let's just sit here and watch y'all for a couple of hours."

Luke threw a pillow at him.

* * *

**The Boar's Nest**

"OWW!" Daisy flinched in pain while Enos was feeling on her ankle to see if it was just a sprain or if it was broken. It appeared that she was right in diagnosing her injury as a sprain.

"Sorry," he apologized. "Y'all got a first aid kit here?"

"Yeah, at the bar right under the counter," Daisy told him, rubbing her ankle to try and relieve the pain.

She heard him walk off towards the bar, stop for a few minutes, then heard him walk back and sit down in his seat.

"Got it," he told her, gently lifting her foot to where it would be sitting in his lap. "Hold still and let me wrap it up. You reckon that ice is still frozen in that freezer back there?"

"Should be," Daisy answered. "OW!"

"Sorry."

He wrapped her foot with such careful ease that it actually impressed her.

"You officers have to learn medical treatment or did you learn that in your spare time?"

"We have to go through a little trainin', like CPR and stuff like that. I taught myself how to wrap bandages though. I got shot in the leg once in a huntin' accident, so I kinda _had_ to teach myself."

"Ow."

"Sorry."

"No, I mean, you getting shot in the leg. It must've hurt."

"Oh," he replied, embarrassed now. "Yeah, it sure smarted. That's the reason, from then on, I don't like using a gun. Notice that I don't pull mine out too often."

"You don't like usin' a gun, but you're a _cop_?"

Enos grinned. "I was already a cop when it happened, so I didn't have much choice in _that_ matter. I like the rest of the job okay, I guess. 'Cept when Mr. Hogg tries to throw your cousins in jail and set y'all up for stuff, of course." The last sentence he said with a frown.

Daisy gave him a sympathetic look. "Enos, I really do appreciate you takin' them in. I know it's probably hard goin' to work and havin' to hear Boss and Rosco talk about tryin' to find them when _you_ have them in your own house."

"It sure is. Sheriff, he's just worn ragged tryin' to figure out where they are. He thought for sure they'd be at Cooter's place, but of course they're _not_." He sighed. "I feel real bad for him sometimes, y'know. He always gets yelled at to do stuff, then he gets all nervous that he's gonna get fired if he don't do it, and then it makes him so desperate that he winds up yellin' at _me _for everything. But I don't take it personal anymore. He's tryin' to do his job, is all, he's just doin' it wrong."

Daisy laid a hand over his. "It's all right, Enos. You just do things the way you feel is right, and someday it will all turn out the way it should."

"I hope you're right, Daisy. I hope you're right."

* * *

**Hazzard Courthouse**

Eve got the candles lit, one on her desk, one farther down in the same room, and then one in each of the two offices. Rosco was holding Flash in his chair, the dog fast asleep and the owner scared to death of what was going on outside.

**BOOM!**

"Rosco, you sure you're all right?" Eve asked worriedly. She'd met people who didn't like storms before, heck her own sister didn't even like them, but this case beat all of them.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he quipped nervously, tensing up when the lightening flashed again.

"Y'know, my younger sister Rachel doesn't like storms either."

He gave her a pained look. "Is it _that_ obvious? Me, that is?"

She smiled at him, remembering how he had grabbed her earlier in fear. "Just a little."

Their eyes met briefly through the candlelight. She looked so danged pretty, he almost forgot how to talk.

"You, uh—got any of that tea with ya?" he managed to ask, shifting his eyes so he wouldn't be staring.

Eve remembered saying the other day about the nerve-calming powers of tea and tried not to smile too big. "Yep, ya want some?"

"If ya don't mind."

She poured two cups, one for him and one for her, asking as she did so, "You like sugar in yours?"

"No, that's fine how it is," he told her. She handed him his cup, which he reached forward to get. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," she said, getting out her sugar bowl to put some in _her_ cup.

Rosco couldn't help but watch. She'd get out one full teaspoon then level it off with her finger before dumping it in. She did this four times before stirring andfinally taking a sip.

"You always do that---level it off?" he had to ask.

"Um-hm, 'cause if you _don't, _all the extra sugar equals up to another teaspoon, then it would be like puttin' five teaspoons in instead of four, and that's just _too_ sweet," she explained matter-of-factly. "I do the same thing to my coffee in the mornings, y'know, to wake up. During the day though, I have to calm down some so I drink tea. Sugar just makes it taste better." She took another sip. "You like chocolate cupcakes?"

"Are you _kiddin' _me? I _love_ chocolate."

Eve reached down a little bit to bring up a small tin box that had about four nice-sized cupcakes in them and handed him one.

"You runnin' a kitchen back there or somethin'?" he joked, momentarily forgetting about the storm outside, which seemed to be growing a little quieter.

She laughed. "I should. I just like to bring somethin' to snack on. I made those late last night, two dozen of 'em. These four were the only ones left."

"From _two dozen_?"

She shrugged. "I may not can cook worth a flip, but my desserts could put Betty Crocker outta business. That's what my sisters say anyhow. They pigged out on 'em last night. I managed to steal these for my own selfish pleasure. Go ahead, try it."

He did, and the sweetness seemed to just _melt _in his mouth.

Eve grinned, seeing the dazzled look on his face that most people had when they first tried some of her desserts. "Good, huh?"

He swallowed. "Good? This is the best chocolate I ever had!"

"Hmm. Maybe I _should _go against Betty Crocker."

Rosco took another bite. Dang, even Boss would have to agree that these were better than Lulu's, and she cooked pretty good stuff.

"Your sisters live anywhere nearby?" he asked.

"I'll say, they live with _me_," Eve answered, taking another sip of tea. "Both are younger than me---Ali's twenty-five and Rachel's nineteen. Five years ago our parents died, so I had to take Rachel in to live with me from there. I got married three years ago, got divorced a year later, thank God. Only Rachel understands what was goin' on there since she lived with us. Ali kinda startedlivin' with uswhen she broke up with that boyfriend of hers around the same time as that.Then I got tired of the city, found a house out in the country, and drug those two with me. Of course, the didn't have much of a choice."

"I got a sister, too---Lulu. She's older than me, I'm the baby. Y'know, she's married to ol' Boss."

"Really?" she asked, shocked at that information. "You two are brothers-in-law? And he treats you like _that_?"

"Like what?"

"Hello, like _dirt_. Don't think I don't hear him fussin' at you when y'all are in his office. Sounds like a parent scoldin' a child in there half the time. I remember I always went ballistic when Nick--my ex--would fuss at Rachel about something."

"If my sister's around when he's yellin' at me, she gets onto him. She's lots bigger than he is, see, so he's kinda scared of her when she gets aggravated at him. Plus she threatens not to cook for him anymore if he don't quit."

"You two get along?"

"I've never known us to argue, 'cept when we were kids of course."

"I argue with Ali on a daily basis. She's the wild one.The shy one, Rachel, and I tend to get along. But now I don't see either one of them anymore. They've been hangin' around with uh---oh, what's their names . . . I think they're names are Bo and Luke?"

Rosco gave her a blank stare. _Bo and Luke_? Her sisters have been hanging around with Bo and Luke the whole time? What if they were with them when that Rick Terry fellow spotted them at the barn, orthere when the boys allegedly found that secret tunnel? He started getting butterflies in his stomach. If he ever found the boys, which he was sure he would sooner or later, he was almost positive that Boss would make him arrest both them and whoever was helping them out. Which meant Eve's sisters were going to end up in the slammer and _he _was going to be responsible for it and---oh dear. Eve wouldn't like that very much at all.

"Yeah, I think those are they're names. You know who I'm talkin' about?"

His mouth suddenly got dry. "Uh---Bo an' Luke? Um, sure I do, they're the Duke boys. Live with their cousin Daisy and Uncle Jesse on their farm. They're---they're pretty good ol' boys, them Dukes."

Hearing a sheriff say that the guys her sisters have been running around with were good boys made Eve feel a little better. "Good, I'd sure have a coronary if I found out they were _criminals _or somethin'."

That told Rosco that she must not know about their probation. On the one hand, it wasn't any of his business to tell her. On the other hand, she would probably appreciate knowing that information. But then, it wasn't like they were deranged murderers, they were just running moonshine. Yet, to Eve, it might not matter _what _they had done to go to prison, just the fact of the matter might count to her.

"Well---actually, there's probably somethin' you might want to----"

He was going to tell her about Bo and Luke when, unexpectedly, the lights came back on. Relief surged through him, but the bright lights sort of blinded him and made him forget what he was going to say. Flash startled awake, looking around in a confused manner, then wagged her tail that the power was on again.

"Good, maybe they'll stay on," Eve remarked, blowing out the candle on her desk. "Feel better, now?"

"Yeah, a little."

No sooner did he say that did the door swing open and a soaking wet Boss Hogg came stumbling in.

"My, oh, _my_, that was quite a storm we had, huh?" he asked in a cheery voice, taking off his hat and shaking off the water. "It started lightenin' up a bit so I decided to head on back down here before it got worse again, but it looks like it's calmed down for good now." He looked around him. "Y'all havin' a candlelit dinner or were ya tryin' to burn the place down?" He fanned the other candle out with his hat. His comment on candlelit dinners had Rosco's face turning red.

"Rosco, my office, now," Boss spat out, going past them and the desk.


	12. Falling Apart

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Twelve: Falling Apart**

**Balladeer: Is that storm over? It is? PHEW! Good, I thought a flood was goin' to come up if it kept on like that. Anyhow, seems to me that ol' Boss is gettin' kinda nervous about these counterfeiter boys he's partnered up with. They seem like more bad news than the other guys.**

"Rosco," Boss said once they were safe in the office. "Rick Terry and his boys are gettin' mighty finicky 'bout them Duke boys not bein' caught yet. Do you have _any _clue where they might be hidin'? _Any_ clue?"

Rosco had a pretty good feeling that if they could find Eve's sisters, they would also find the Dukes. Except that he had no idea what the girls even looked like. But then, for another reason, he just couldn't seem to make himself want to do something like that to Eve—throw her sisters in jail, that is. He had a feeling it would scramble her up something awful to see her two younger sisters behind bars. And she might think that he was just trying to use her to get some information about having sisters so that he could get the boys, or something like that.

"No, Boss, no clue at all. I've looked _everywhere_."

Boss put a hand up against his forehead as if he were running a fever. He was getting antsy about this operation. The Dukes knew that something was goin' down, Rick knew that the Dukes knew, and Boss _didn't_ know where the Dukes were so he could get them out of Rick's mind. If they didn't find the boys soon, Rick was liable to do something drastic—like find the boys himself and permanently put them to rest. Or worse, come after Boss and put _him_ to rest for not finding the Dukes himself.

"Apparently, not everywhere 'cause they have to be _somewhere_. Oh, this is gettin' ridiculous, where are them damned boys at!"

He slammed his fist against his desk, making Rosco jump a little bit. Boss losing his temper was never a pretty picture, but this time Boss really seemed to be upset about the Dukes not being found. He must be real worried that something bad will go down for him to be this concerned.

"Don't worry, Boss, I'll find 'em, me an' Enos will. Don't worry you're pretty lil' head over it."

"Oh, shut up, ya numb-skull," he snapped, not in the mood for Rosco trying to cheer him up. "Just get out there an' get to lookin'!"

Rosco scrambled out of there real quick, not too keen on sticking around for Boss to blow a bigger fuse than he already had. Boss threw his hat against the floor in anger and started puffing on his cigar faster than normal.

_Them boys,_ he thought to himself. _Themdamned Dukes. Why they gotta get involved in every little thing I do? What gives them a right to intrude in my business? I've had it up to _here_ with them always screwin' up my plans. Lousy, good-for-nothin', always sneakin' about---and that idiot brother-in-law of mine, never can do anything right, screws up everythin' just as bad as them Dukes do. If his sister weren't my wife, I'd of fired him YEARS ago! I'm sick an' tired of not gettin' my way around here, I've HAD it!_

He flopped down in his desk chair, rubbed both of his temples with his fingers to try and calm himself down. If this operation went down badly, he was going to make everybody involved pay for it.

**Balladeer: For once, ol' Boss is startin' to _scare _me . . . **

* * *

It was getting close to five o'clock—time for Ali and Rachel to go meet their sister at the Courthouse so that she wouldn't have a heart attack worrying where they were. They were both walking down the sidewalk when somebody came up behind them and put a hand on each one's shoulders. 

"Long time, no see!" a familiar voice proclaimed. Rachel nearly jumped out of her skin, while Ali wrenched her way out of the stranger's grasp and turned to face—

"Cooter!" she growled. "What you doin' sneakin' on us like that?"

"I thought it'd be funny," he grinned, putting one arm around each one, Ali on one side and Rachel on the other. "Girls, I think y'all need to step into my office for a second."

* * *

"Now that we're alone," Cooter said once the three of them got situated in his garage. "Maybe y'all should explain what in tarnation y'all are doin' gettin' involved in some counterfeiting thing with my two best buds." 

The girls gave each other horrified looks and then turned to look back at Cooter, who had his arms crossed and was giving them a serious look. "Well? I'm waitin'."

"Coot, how'd ya find out 'bout this?" Ali demanded to know. "Did Bo an' Luke—"

"No, their cousin Daisy told me," Cooter answered her before she got the question out. "Have y'all lost your minds? Them guys, whoever they are, are bad news. What if y'all were to get killed by those guys?"

"Bo an' Luke ain't gonna let that happen," Rachel insisted.

"No, they ain't, because you two are forbidden from gettin' further involved! As y'alls older cousin—"

"You're only three years older than me," Ali argued, glaring at him. "Besides, it's none of your business _what _we do _with _who. We're old enough to consider consequences."

"That's not the point. The point is that you two are in somethin' y'all don't need to be in. As long as I've known Bo an' Luke, I should know that things usually don't work out right with them—even if things turn out to be that way in the end—but anyhow, I'm pretty derned sure that whatever y'all have planned . . . something's gonna go wrong and someone's gonna get hurt. _Furthermore_, have y'all considered what Eve's gonna do if she finds out? She'll have _twin_cows if she does!"

"And she won't," Ali pressed. "An' don't think you're gonna tell her either!"

"Ali, I'm not entirely comfortable keepin' secrets from Eve, especially about her own sisters. If I had a sister, and _she_was gettin' into trouble, _I'd_wanna know. But seein' how I just got you cousins, I'm tryin' my best to keep y'all safe."

"Coot, look, we appreciate that you're worried, but _honestly_!"

"Cooter," Rachel started. "Please don't tell her. She wouldn't understand. She'd think that we were turnin' into delinquents or criminals or what-have-you."

The mechanic, frustrated now, pressed his hands on both sides of his head and lightly squeezed as if to relieve pressure building up in his brain. "Okay, here's what I'll do. I won't tell Eve, _if_and _only if_you two don't bring too much attention to yourselves from the bad guys and wind up gettin' into some kind of trouble. If something _does _happen, I'll no choice but to tell her. Got it?"

"Got it," Ali groaned, rolling her eyes.

Ring ring!

Cooter jogged to his desk to answer the phone. "Cooter's Garage—oh, hi, Evie!"

Rachel and Ali exchanged looks again.

"The girls? Yeah, they're right here with me. Oh, they were supposed to meet you at the courthouse? I'm sorry, I drug 'em off the streets to talk with me, but don't worry they're fine. Okay, they'll be around when you get here. Bye-bye."

"Thank you, Cooter," Rachel said quietly.

"I still got a bad feelin', though, y'all . . ."

* * *

Rosco was on his last nerve. He was so tired of looking pointlessly through the county for the Dukes. He had searched every inch of Hazzard that it was almost ridiculous. The swamp, the lake, the ponds, abandoned buildings, everybody in town's houses, even his own backyard even though he knew they wouldn't be _there_. It seemed to him that Boss had gone a little overboard this time. He had gone looking for the boys before, but never like this. Never to the point of extreme exertion and to where it was getting to be real chore. Rosco usually had a little fun looking for Bo and Luke, since car chases were generally involved amongst other things. But the boys were nowhere to be found, and that took the fun out of the whole thing. 

Enos drove up beside Rosco's car to where the driver's windows would be next to each other and allow each other to talk.

"Howdy, Sheriff," he said in a less chipper voice than he usually spoke in. "Any luck?"

"I don't understand it, Enos," Rosco told him, shaking his head in a confused manner. "I've looked everywhere. I've looked all over this derned county and I _still _haven't found them. It's like they just----disappeared!"

Enos shot his eyes down towards the ground. Of course _he_ knew where Bo an' Luke were, but he couldn't betray their trust or the friendship he had with them. Yet at the same time, he also felt guilty for "harboring criminals" and letting Rosco continue on with this extremely tiring search.

"Don't worry, Sheriff, we'll find 'em soon enough," he tried to assure him.

"I hope so. Boss'll have my head on a silver platter if we don't," Rosco sighed, scratching Flash behind her ears. He shifted the gears on the car from "park" to "drive" and let up on the brake. "Guess I'll check the swamp one last time before I go home. Come on, Flash."

* * *

well, that's chappie twelves, hope y'all liked and please review!


	13. Caught

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Thirteen: Caught**

**Balladeer: It's been couple of days since the storm hit, and the roads were gradually dryin'. Bo, Luke, Rachel, and Ali decided that tonight would be a good night to try and get the evidence they needed to put the counterfeiters in prison. Of course, the girls would have to wait for Eve to go to sleep before they could go . . .**

"Eve, thanks for stayin' up an' watchin' _Gone With the Wind_ with us," Rachel grinned as they watched the end credits roll across the television screen.

Eve could barely keep her eyes open. The movie wasn't one of her favorites, especially when it ended at eleven o'clock at night, but her sisters had insisted she stay up and watch the four-hour film with them. She yawned and stretched her arms out.

"No problem," she said in a tired voice, getting off the couch and heading off to her bedroom. "Just for this, we're watching _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_ next week. G'night—"

As soon as her bedroom door closed, Ali and Rachel gave each other a high-five.

"Ingenious, Rach, that movie sure did the trick. She'll be asleep for hours!"

"Yeah, but now we have to watch that Mr. Smith movie."

"We'll survive," Ali shrugged, jumping off the couch and running to her own bedroom. Whispering now, she said, "Hurry up an' get dressed, the boys will be here any minute!"

* * *

The boys had managed to sneak out without waking Enos up and even got away in the General. All four of them rode down near where they had found that secret tunnel, turned the engine off, and got out. This time they had flashlights with them and easily found where the big fake rock was still sitting on beside the underground door. Luke swept away the pinestraw covering the door with one of his feet and opened it.

"Okay, here's the plan," he said, putting on a pair of gloves. "Me an' Bo go down an' get some of the money. You two stay here an' keep a watch out. If y'all see anyone coming, start—I don't know, make a sound like a cat or somethin'. We'll get out an' make a run for the General, then call up the Feds to get them down here." He checked his watch. "It's eleven twenty. If we're not out in ten minutes, run for help. Namely Uncle Jesse or Daisy, but if y'all have to, Cooter'll be fine I guess."

The boys started down the ladder, Rachel saying, "Be careful", as they did so. Bo and Luke made it down and used their lights to see around them, making sure nobody was down there hiding or anything like that.

"Glad there's no bats down here," Bo whispered with a grin on his face.

* * *

Rick Terry and a couple of his boys were in sitting by the table, counting out the counterfeit bills they had printed off that day. Seventy-five thousand dollars. They had made around fifteen million since they started this business down here in Hazzard. The plan was simply to sell it to a bigger organization for even more money than it was worth (REAL money, too) and then split the profit with Boss Hogg. Although Rick Terry wanted _all_ the money. The only reason he had gotten Boss Hogg in on it was so he would have a good place to hide out. He could count on Boss to keep the law off his tail.

* * *

"Kinda stuffy down here," Bo commented in a whisper, rubbing his nose. "Kinda odd since it just rained."

"Don't you dare sneeze," Luke warned him. "Don't you—"

"AAAA-CHOOOOO!"

* * *

Rick Terry's head shot up, put a hand to his gun he had lying on the table, and put a finger to his lips to tell his boys to be quiet. "Dim the lights," he whispered, getting up and hiding behind the door to the tunnel. "Someone's out there. Hide."

* * *

"Bo, you better hope nobody's in that room," Luke said in a low voice, wanting to ring his cousin's neck.

"Sorry."

Luke shook his head as if he couldn't believe Bo sometimes. "I don't see any lights on in there. There's probably no one in there. Come on."

Bo stayed behind his cousin as Luke carefully twisted the door knob and opened it. The lamps in the room were dimly lit but he couldn't see anybody in there. He let out a sigh of relief. He and Bo walked in unsuspecting when, suddenly, Bo felt a gun being poked into his back. He froze, a wild look in his eye.

"Don't move," a voice said, causing Luke to freeze as well. Two men emerged from behind the money-making machines carrying guns and whoever was behind Bo came around the front. "The Duke boys, I presume?" He laughed evilly. "Tie 'em up and set them in the corner."

* * *

It had been about ten minutes. Ali was pacing around the door in the ground and Rachel was sitting down beside it staring down into the hole as if waiting for one of them to pop up. Ali was smoking away like a industrial plant.

"Ali, it's been ten minutes. Where are they?"

"Dunno. Gettin' worried." She took in a deep breath of smoke then let it run out slowly out of her mouth. "Come on, we're goin' down there."

"WHAT?" Rachel asked with big eyes, watching her sister start down the ladder. "But—but they said to stay here!"

"Since when do I ever do what I'm told? Just come on!"

* * *

Bo and Luke were tied up back to back in the corner, both of them wriggling to get loose but it was no good. Rick was sitting in a chair with a gun pointed at the two of them, when he heard some more voices coming from the tunnel.

"Good grief, what do you country folk think this is, a subway station?" he asked grumpily, getting up and dimming the lamps again. "Don't say a word or you'll all be dead."

The henchmen hid in their original hiding places and Rick went back behind the door—which he almost got knocked out by when Ali slammed it open.

"Bo! Luke! What's takin' y'all so----" she saw where the boys were tied up, opened her mouth to scream until a hand slapped itself across her mouth.

"Don't even think about it," Rick growled, shoving her inside. "You too, come on!" he snapped at Rachel, who had grabbed Ali's hand in fear and followed her inside. He looked them both up and down. "Well, y'all are actually a sight for sore eyes. Been a while since I had me a woman—"

"You leave them alone!" Bo demanded.

Rick sneered at the boys. "Like I'm actually low-down enough to take advantage of women. You two, get in the corner with them, _now_! Dawson, Greggs, keep an eye on 'em," he said to his two men who had come out of hiding now. "I'm gonna make a little phone call. If y'all wish to stay alive, you'll stay quiet and let _me_ do the talking."

Balladeer: Folks, I got a feelin' that things are gonna go from bad to _worse._

* * *

Boss was asleep in bed with Lulu when the phone downstairs began to ring. He stirred from his sleep, bothered from the noise, and grumbled himself out of bed. If he was going to wake up and answer the phone at eleven-thirty at night, it had _better _be good!

He switched on the light to the living room and grabbed the ringing phone. "Hello, J.D. Hogg speaking."

"Hogg," he heard Rick Terry growl over the other end of the phone. "A couple of friends of yours are here, and I do _not_appreciate the interruption."

"Terry, what are you babblin' about?"

"The Duke boys, you idiot! I thought you had said that you were goin' to keep them away from me!"

"What, the Dukes!" Boss shouted. "But, Rick, you have to believe me, my sheriff and his deputy have been searchin' everywhere for them boys----"

"Apparently not hard enough! And if you don't bring me five million in cold hard cash, you can say good-bye to these kids and to your future, 'cause I'm gonna stick you with this counterfeiting scam!" Rick hung the phone up and Boss slammed his down on the receiver.

"Ooooooooooh!" he growled. "Those _Dukes!_ They've gone too far this time!"

Balladeer: After Rick threatened Boss with that phone call, Boss called Rosco, who called Enos, who called Jesse and Daisy. 'Cause Boss needed to yell at someone that was supposedly on his side, Rosco had to drag his hired help along, and Enos had to let Jesse an' Daisy know what was goin' on with the boys. So everybody knew somethin', except for Cooter an' Eve mainly because nobody else knew that the girls were with the boys an' therefore didn't _know_ to call Cooter or Eve. Get all that?


	14. Escape

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Fourteen: Escape**

It was close to midnight when Eve startled herself awake. Blinking and rubbing her eyes, she glanced at the clock on her nightstand. She moaned and turned over to try to go to sleep, but something seemed to be telling her that she should get up and check the house.

Reluctantly, she crawled out of bed and stumbled around in the dark. She went to Rachel's room and quietly opened the door to see if she was in bed. Her eyes widened to see that the bed was still made from this morning. A gut-wrenching feeling entered her stomach.

_Maybe she's spendin' the night with Ali tonight_, she thought as she went to Ali's door and opened. The same feeling crawled into her stomach when she saw the made bed in her room as well.

Panic seized her and she switched all the lights on in the house and quickly punched called the first person she could think of.

* * *

Boss was so mad that this had happened that he drove himself to the barn that Rick had the Dukes holed up at. Of course he didn't know that Ali and Rachel were there as well, heck he didn't even know they existed! Rosco and Enos pulled up in their squad carsafter a while with their lights flashing, both of them in uniform. 

"Boss, what's goin' on?" Rosco asked as he and Enos ran up to Boss's side.

"You numbskulls, Rick Terry has the Dukes and is tryin' to make me pay five million dollars for their freedom _and_ to keep me outta prison! That's what's goin' on!"

Enos looked at the barn and all kinds of horrible thoughts entered his head. Daisy would be so disappointed that he had allowed the boys to get into danger after all.

"What're we gonna do?" Rosco wanted to know.

"Give Rick five million fake dollars," Boss whispered, patting his briefcase. "I took the liberty of keeping some of his own creations to myself. He'll let the Dukes go, then you can arrest them for trespassing, and whatever else I think of when it's all over."

Rosco was grinning ear to ear at how simple the whole thing sounded. Enos had the most worried look on his face, as if torn on what to do. It wasn't too long before the sound of vehicles pulling up behind them reached their ears. Along came Jesse' truck, Daisy in the passenger seat with her bum foot propped up beside her.

"Why in the world is everybody showin' up!" Boss yelled. "Do you people always stay awake this time of night, followin' me around?"

"J.D. we're here on account that my nephews are being held hostage by one of your business partners," Jesse glared at him as he walked up to the group. Daisy stayed inside the vehicle and waved at Enos, who waved shyly back.

"Your nephews need to learn to mind their own business!" Boss snapped. "If it weren't for them, none of this would be happenin'!"

"If you'd stop being so dad-gum crooked, this never woulda happened," Jesse grumbled.

"How'd you find out anyways?" Rosco asked, confused over the whole mess.

"I told him," Enos admitted. "I was kinda helpin' him hide the boys from y'all the whole time . . . " he added with a sheepish look.

Rosco looked as if he were goin' to wring his neck. "YOU DIPSTICK! You mean to tell me that my searchin' this entire county numerous times a day were all in vain!"

"Never mind, Rosco," Boss argued. "The point is that Rick Terry has the boys and he's threatenin' me with their lives and my freedom if I don't give them five million bucks." He patted his briefcase. "Which I have."

Jesse was about ready punch his lights out. "Then get in there and exchange it, for cryin' out loud!"

"I was goin' to when ya pulled up," Boss growled, turning on his heel and marching towards the barn. "Don't no one follow me, neither!"

* * *

Rick was waitin' when Boss entered the underground of the barn. "Here ya go, Rick," the white-suited man declared, throwing the briefcase at Rick. "Five million simoleons. Just as promised. Now, let's just let the kiddies go---" He paused and gave the group a strange look. "Who the heck are you?" 

Bo gave him a hurt look. "Why, Boss, I'm insulted. You should know who I am."

"Not _you_," Boss sneered. "The girls."

"Ali an' Rachel Willows," Luke answered, rolling his eyes.

"Willows! My secretary's relatives are runnin' around with you Dukes!"

"Our sister works for a loon in a white suit?" Ali asked in a smart aleck tone.

"ENOUGH!" Rick shouted. "You're all driving me crazy!"

"Then why don't you just let us all go, you got your money, just like I promised," Boss smiled in a friendly manner.

"Not so fast, Hogg," Rick said lowly. He threw the briefcase on the table and laughed. "Like I would actually let y'all go. You think I'm that stupid? I let you go, and you call the Feds as fast as you can." He clicked the gun off safety. "I'll be countin' my money. Everybody stay put 'til I decide when the best time will be to do away with y'all."

"It'll never work, Rick, I've got my boys out there waitin---"

"I'll just get rid of them too, then, won't I?"

* * *

"Cooter, I demand you tell me what the heck is goin' on around here!" Eve ordered from the passenger seat of Cooter's tow truck as he was heading towards the barn that Jesse had told him the boys were being held at. See, Eve had called Cooter to see about the girls, and then he called Jesse about Bo and Luke, and Jesse told Cooter that the boys had been taken captive, so Cooter only assumed that the girls were with them, so the right now the only person that didn't know anything about anything was poor Eve. She had been so upset over her sisters' disappearing act that she hadn't even bothered to get dressed. She was still in pink pajamas, matching houserobe and fluffy houseshoes. She even (gasp!) had her hair down.

"Well, Evie, it's kinda like this. Apparently, your sisters and my buddies wound up findin' out about a secret counterfeitin' business and tried to stop 'em on their own, an' now-----well, they're bein' held captive!"

"_WHAT!_" She looked about ready to rip her hair out. "Those two---the little----grrrrrrr! Why do they _do_ these things to me!"

"Plus the fact that your employer is behind this."

"Excuse me? You allowed me to get hired by a criminal mastermind!" she shrieked.

Cooter started laughing. "Criminal mastermind? I doubt that."

"If all three of ya weren't taller than me, I'd have a mind to turn y'all over my knee an' just whoop the tar outta y'all," she fussed, crossing her arms and staring out the windshield. "This is just . . . unbelievable! My own sisters runnin' around gettin' involved in stuff that my boss is a part of.I'm surprised I haven't gone prematurely gray over those two renegades."

* * *

Luke was frantically trying to figure a way out of this mess. With him and Bo tied up, there's wasn't that much they could do. Boss was useless, of course, seeing that he was extremely irate with them. The girls---well . . .

"Ali," he whispered. "Ask if you can smoke."

She gave him a strange look. "Why?"

"Just do it."

"Oooookay. Hey, you, Mr. Thug," she said to Rick, who was sitting at the table counting the money with his henchmen. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Go ahead," he grinned. "Doesn't matter if your lungs rot anyway since you'll be dead on the floor in a few minutes."

She shrugged, got out a cigarette and her lighter from her back pocket and lit one up. Luke whispered, "Give the lighter to me."

Ali casually let the lighter fall behind Luke where he could easily catch it with his bound hands. He struggled to light it so he could burn a section of the rope off without catching himself on fire, and broke a section of the rope so he could slip it off his hands. He passed the lighter to Bo, who did the same thing. They still pretended as if they were still tied though, so not to draw any attention just yet.

Rick got up from his seat and walked over to the little group with his gun drawn. "I'm kinda bored. Who wants to go first."

"I will!" Luke shouted, jumping up and ramming Rick in the gut with a fist, causing him to go flying backwards. The two other men realized what was happening and jumped to help their boss when Bo went shooting across the table to tackle them.

Boss was screaming all kinds of curses that his counterfeiting scam was going so wrongly. Rick and Luke were tearing into each other, both of them getting equal amounts of kicking and punching.Bo was trying to beat the two henchmen at the same time. Rachel grabbed one of the lamps, blew the fuse out, and smashed it over one of the men's head to knock him out cold.

"Thanks, Rach!" Bo shouted as he easily punched the other guy out.

Boss became frantic. He couldn't let this whole thing go down entirely bad. He spotted all the money lying on the floor that Rick had made, grabbed his briefcase off the table and started scrambling to collect as much as he could carry in it.

Luke grabbed a chair and slammed it against Rick's head, sending him toppled to the floor.

* * *

Rosco was getting worried. Boss had been gone for ten minutes so far. It didn't take that long to give someone money and then walk out with a couple of boys, especially if they were the Duke boys. He was surprised he hadn't heard any gunfire or anything yet. 

Enos, meanwhile, was over at Jesse's truck talkin' with Daisy.

"I'm sorry this happened, Daisy. I feel real bad that Bo an' Luke ended up in trouble anyways. I had no idea they'd sneak off like that while I was sleepin'."

Daisy laid a hand over his. "It's all right, Enos. You still helped 'em out, an' we're grateful."

Flash started howling from Rosco's car at someone pulling up behind them. Everybody turned to see Cooter's tow truck come into view and park beside Jesse's truck.

"Now why are _you_ here?" Rosco asked the mechanic, whom he had never really gotten along with.

"None of your business,_Rosco_," Cooter glared ashe walked up.

Evecame prancing up about this time, Rosco's heart skipping a beat as she did so. Shesure lookeddifferent not wearing a little business-like skirt set and her hair pulled up, but prettyjust the same.

"What's goin' on? Where's those twosisters of mine?" she asked as shestood beside her cousin.

"Cooter, how many cousins did ya bring up here?"Jessehad to ask.

"Wait a minute. Are you tellin' methat your_sisters_ are in there?" Roscoinquired of Eve, pointing at the barn.She nodded. "Oh,brother."

"Why, what's theproblem?" she asked. "Is somethin' wrong?"

"Well, Boss has been in there for a while, an' he ain't back yet, an'----oh, good grief. Enos, come on, let's go see what's takin' them so long."_

* * *

_

Oh, what is to happen now? Stay tuned to find out, and please review! 


	15. The Betrayal, Part One

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Fifteen: The Betrayal, Part One**

"Yeah, we got 'em!" Ali shouted victoriously as all three of the bad men lay unconscious on the floor.

Luke saw Boss out of the corner of his eye trying to sneak towards the door that led to the tunnel, carrying the overfilled briefcase in both hands as if he were cradling a baby.

"Hey, hold on a minute!" the dark-haired boy yelled, rushing to prevent Boss from escaping with the money, but ended up tripping over an over-turned chair on the floor. Bo helped him to his feet, but before they got a chance to go after Boss, the door _above _them that led up to the barn opened and they heard,

"_Freeeeeeeeze_! Hold it right there, you Dukes," Rosco ordered, coming down the ladder with Enos following him closely. "I've been searchin' for days for you two an'----" He noticed the three unconscious men on the floor. "Judas priest on a pony! What happened here?"

"No time to explain Rosco, we gotta get Boss," Bo spat out, tossing him the chair that Luke had tripped on. "Catch!"

With the sheriff busy keeping the chair from knocking him backwards, Bo and Luke bolted out towards the tunnel that Boss had escaped down. Rosco, aggravated now, threw the chair to the other side of the room and shouted,

"Enos! Get these guys an' cuff 'em an' stuff 'em!"

"Okay, sheriff. Y'all have the right to remain—"

"_Enos!_ They're already silent! Just cuff 'em, for Pete's sake!"

"Yes, sir."

"An' as for you two," Rosco added to Ali and Rachel. "Your sister's havin' a nervous breakdown over the both of ya, now excuse me while I go grab those three rascals an' sort this out!"

Rosco headed out after Bo and Luke, who was still after Boss, leaving Ali, Rachel, and Enos behind with the three knocked out men. Ali slapped her forehead.

"Oh, Lord, Eve's gonna be hoppin' mad an' ready to kill when she sees us."

Balladeer: Remember how this all began when Bo an' Luke just happened to decide driving down the wrong road at the wrong time?

* * *

Boss had already managed to huff and puff his way up the ladder that led to the secret exit way near the big fake rock where the General Lee was still parked at. He threw the briefcase to the side and crawled out, grabbed his bag, and took off fast he could. Rick Terry might have failed, but _he_sure wasn't! He would take the money himself to a higher corporation and get paid extra for his work. And those Dukes weren't going to get in his way this time. 

"Boss!" he heard Luke shout from behind him. "Hold it right there, Boss!"

Rolling his eyes and scowling, Boss turned around to face the two young men who were making their way towards him. He still clutched the bag close to him, not about to give it up.

"Stay away from me!" he threatened. "I've had it with y'all ruinin' all my plans, an' this is one that you won't screw up!"

"Boss, just calm down," Luke said gently. "This isn't worth the trouble. Let's just forget the whole thing ever happened, like we always do when you try to frame us."

"For once, I wasn't tryin' to do that. Y'all just happened along an' bumbled things up like always. Now get outta my way an' let me go about my business. An' _you_forget this ever happened."

"We can't allow that, an' you know it," Bo told him. "No way we gonna let you get away with a bag of fake money in your possession."

"Boys, I'm warnin' ya'll—"

"Boss, don't worry, I'm here," Rosco panted, tired from the running he'd had to do to catch up.

"Oh, an' ain't that just great," Boss muttered to himself. "You bone-head, don't just stand there, arrest them. An' those two girls when ya find 'em."

"Okay, I understand the Dukes getting arrested, but why should I—"

"Because I said so, that's why," the man snorted, shifting the bag's weight to another arm. "Don't ask me questions if ya ain't gonna understand the answer to 'em, now get movin'."

"Rosco, don't you dare!" Luke glared at the sheriff. "Boss here plans to run off with those counterfeit bills and keep the profits for himself."

"Oh, tiddly-tuddly, Boss wouldn't do that. We always split everything, fair an' square. Right, Boss?"

"You moron, what gives you the idea that I'd share this with you? The only thing you've done in this whole caboodle is allow the Dukes to screw everythin' up an' ruin my plans with Rick Terry. So, why should I even consider lettin' ya in on this deal?"

Rosco was so stunned that he had trouble finding his voice for a minute. "But—Boss—I thought that we were—I don't know . . . partners, or somethin'?"

"Partners?" Boss repeated to himself, laughing so hard he had the making of tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "What on _earth _have you been drinkin'? Nobody said anythin' about us bein' partners. You must be the slowest person I know. We're not partners, Rosco. Why, I practically _own _you."

Rosco still had a blank look on his face, not quite understanding what Boss was getting at. "But—but—"

"Don't _but_ me! Get your head outta the clouds, ya pea-brain! The only reason I let you have some money every now an' then is to keep ya motivated to do as I say. But since you hardly do anything that I tell you to the _right _way, I see no point in even botherin' keepin' you around."

"Wait, I thought you were usin' Rosco to keep yourself outta trouble with the law when you pulled stuff like this?" Bo had to ask, who was probably as confused as Rosco was.

"I _am_, you bumpkin!" Boss shouted. "Why do ya think I got rid of that pension? To keep him from retirin', and then Imarried Lulu to—for one thing, get to the family fortune when Mama Coltrane dies—and to use as a bait for that lame-brain over there to pay me back for helpin' with his money problems! If I hadn't married Lulu, he'd be homeless by now from havin' to take care of her!"

Balladeer: So now the beans have been spilled----

* * *

"You two lil' runts are in _so _much trouble!" Eve screamed as soon as her sisters emerged from the barn. "Wait 'til I get my hands on y'all!" She lunged forward as if she were going to tackle them, but Cooter grabbed her by the waist and picked her up a few inches off the ground to keep her where she was. "Let me go, dang it!" 

"Eve, you _really _need to lighten up on the sugar. It makes ya hyper," Cooter advised her, still trying to restrain her from going after her sisters.

Balladeer: He might as well be tryin' to keep an angry mother from goin' after Bo or Luke.

"If they pull another stunt like this, I'll switch to _decaf coffee_!" she uttered angrily, breathing hard and silently counting to ten in her head to calm down, yet still kicking her legs since she was in mid-air.

Enos came out behind them, trying to carry a knocked-out man on his shoulders. Jesse figured he'd need help, so he called to Cooter to help _him _assist Enos. Cooter released his grip on Eve, ran after Jesse, and whispered "Good luck" to Ali and Rachel as he went past.

Flash started howling, meanwhile, from the driver's seat of Rosco's car and jumped out the open window to head out to the woods.

"Oh, for cryin' out----Flash, come back, girl!" Eve called the dog, which did no good because Flash was already out of sight.

* * *

Rosco looked about ready to cry, who still was a bit confused on what Boss was sayin' but at the same time he was getting the feeling that the past ten years of his life had been a lie and that he had been snookered into this business with Boss by means of trickery and deceit. 

"But, Boss," he said in a tiny voice. "I thought we were friends."

"Friends! We were more partners than friends, an' we weren't even _that_. Rosco, I swear, you are the most gullible fool I know. Friends! Bah!" He chuckled to himself for a minute, then cleared his throat. "Oh, but enough of this. Hurry up and arrest them Dukes before I get indigestion."

"On what charges?" Luke demanded to know. "And like he'd do anything you tell him to after what _you_ just said!"

"Why, by being in possession of counterfeit money of course," Boss explained with a sneaky grin, ignoring Luke's last statement, andthrowing the heavy briefcase at Bo, who instinctively caught it with both hands.

Luke closed his eyes and groaned. "Bo!"

"What?" Bo asked innocently. "It was gonna hit me if I didn't catch it!"

"Forget the bag, _I'm _gonna hit ya!" Luke growled. "Now your fingerprints are all over it!"

"Well, so are Boss's!"

"That's easy to solve," Boss stated calmly. "You Dukes ran off with counterfeit money after tryin' to kill your partners, Rick Terry an' Company, and I simply apprehended you." He had a rather smug look about him. "Rosco, make yourself useful and arrest them already. I might change my mind about givin' you some of the profits later on."

Bo and Luke looked at Rosco, hoping that he would come to his senses and do the right thing for once. Rosco took a deep breath to himself, trying to collect himself, and said,

"No. Not this time."

Boss stared at the sheriff in a disbelieving manner. "What did you say?"

"I said, no. They didn't do anything wrong. Just because we don't like 'em very much is no reason to lock 'em away from years on end."

"Rosco, you've lost your mind. You ain't thinkin' clearly."

"No. For once I _am_ thinkin' clearly. An' another thing, you can forget about me helpin' you pull stuff like this anymore."

Boss was silent for a moment, not sure what to think of this sudden change in opinion that Rosco had gone through in the past five minutes. He was still trying to think of what to do when Flash came streaking out through the woods, stood in front of Boss and started howling like crazy. Boss grinned rather evilly and reached inside his coat.

"All right, Rosco, have it your way," he smirked. Rosco glared at him, but then his eyes widened when the man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at the howling dog.

"Either you arrest them Dukes, or I'll nail your precious pooch right between the eyes."

**Balladeer: Now I always get nervous when someone threatens Daisy or Jesse . . . but pointin' a gun at Flash seems a little _too _****low.**

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haha, cliffhanger! Don't forget to review! 


	16. The Betrayal, Part Two

**A/N: Okay, here's sixteen! Hope ya like, and---to the "silent readers", _please_ review :) ! I'd like to know what EVERYBODY is thinking of this story so far, if you please :) **

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The Wind Blows Free

**Chapter Sixteen: The Betrayal, Part Two**

Rosco could hardly believe what was happening. One minute, he had thought that J.D. Hogg was his best friend in the whole wide world, and the next minute he was saying all kinds of horrible things about him and pointing a gun at his beloved dog.

"What's it gonna be, Rosco?" Boss asked him with a crazed look in his eyes. "Ya gonna arrest the Dukes or watch me blow Flash's brains out?"

Luke looked back and forth between the two men and put his hands in the air. "Rosco," he said softly, getting the sheriff to glance at him. "Just go ahead an' cuff us. I know how ya feel about that dog, so just go ahead and arrest us. We won't hold nothin' against ya. We'll understand."

Rosco was about ready to burst into tears at any given second. Boss's betrayal, Flash being threatened, and the fact that he really for once did _not _want to arrest Bo and Luke was just too much for him. Everything seemed to have been turned upside-down for him in the past few minutes.

"I'm gonna count to five, Rosco, an' you better make up your mind!" Boss warned him. "One—"

"For pete's sake, just arrest us already!" Luke was screaming at the same time.

"Two—"

Rosco put his hands against his head as if to squeeze out the building pressure that was forming in his head.

"Three—"

"Rosco! We won't blame ya, just go ahead an' do it!"

"Four—"

"_Rosco!_" Luke shouted, he andBo closing their eyes.

**Balladeer: I can't watch!**

"Five!" Boss clicked the gun off safety and cocked it.

BANG!

* * *

Everybody at the barn stopped whatever they were doing when they heard the gunshot. Eve had been screaming her lungs out at her sisters, who had been doing equal screaming back. Cooter and Jesse had both been carrying Rick Terry out of the barn. Daisy stuck her head out of Jesse's truck. 

"Uncle Jesse!" she cried. "The boys!"

"Don't worry, Daisy!" Enos shouted, a fearful look plastered on his face, and began to run in the direction he had heard the shot.

* * *

Bo and Luke had tensedevery muscle when they heard the shot. They thought for sure that when they opened them, they'd see a dead Basset Hound lying in the dirt, but alas they didn't even hear Flash yelp or anything. Luke opened his eyes first and saw Boss grabbing his wrist, which was bleeding like crazy. Flash was cowering behind Rosco who held a smoking gun in his hand, shaking like a leaf. 

"Rosco!" Boss shouted through clenched teeth as he held his pounding hand. "You shot me!"

"Well, you were gonna shoot Flash!" Rosco yelled back.

"Now, Rosco, you can't believe that I was really goin' to—"

"_Hush_! Just _hush up_!" the sheriff screamed furiously, still shaking from the ordeal.

The boys gave him a wide-eyed look, as if they couldn't believe that Rosco had actually shot someone—especially Boss—or that he knew how to even use the blasted gun in the first place. Rosco turned his head to the boys and motioned for them to go.

"Y'all just get outta here," he said in a quiet voice.

"Rosco, you all ri—" Bo started.

"Don't. Just _don't_ talk to me. Go home and be with your folks. And drop that stupid bag all ready."

Bo released the briefcase and he and Luke walked away carefully, as if scared that Rosco might shoot _them _if they made any sudden moves and headed on towards the barn area. Flash was growling at Boss from behind Rosco's feet.

Boss's gun had fallen onto the ground and well out of reach. He still clutched his hand, trying to stop the bleeding and moaning in pain. "Rosco—y'know that I didn't mean a word—"

"Don't even talk to me, Hogg," Rosco snapped, his eyes glowing angrily. "For the past ten years, I believed ya when ya said that you were the only friend I had, the only person I could trust, my only confidant. When all these years, you were the only enemy I had. I didn't know that then, and I realize that I've made quite a number of mistakes in the way I've been actin' as sheriff. And I'm gonna change that."

"It'll do ya no good. You're too used to how I run things. It won't be easy for you to gain any respect back from the Hazzard folk, nor easy for ya to change how ya go about your business."

"Maybe. But I'll sure as heck try."

The two men stood in silence for a minute or two when the sound of someone running towards them came into notice. Enos started screaming for the sheriff, skidded to a halt beside him, and looked at Boss and his bleeding hand. Then he saw the gun on the ground and the one in Rosco's hand.

"Sheriff?"

"Don't ask nothin'. Just arrest him," Rosco told him in a soft, serious voice.

"Ooookay," Enos replied, drawing out the word, not sure if he even _wanted _to know what had happened. "What we arrestin' him for?"

"Too much to name off right now. Just do as you're told."

"Yes, sir," Enos said, getting his handcuffs from the back of his gun belt and heading over to Boss. "You have the right to remain silent. Anythin' you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. If—"

Rosco turned around and began to walk away, for once not stopping Enos in the middle of thereading of the Miranda Rights.He couldn't stand to watch the procession take place. Boss Hogg might have had a cloak over his eyes for an entire decade, but that didn't change the fact that it still hurt him that Boss, the man that he thought was his friend,was being arrested. He stooped down to pick up Flash, who was at his side, gave her a squeeze and kept on.

"Rosco!" Boss yelled out. "I'll never forgive you for this! Don't think you ain't seen the last of me! I'm gonna get you for this, Rosco Coltrane! An' I'll get you good!"

Those words were to come back to haunt him, possibly for the rest of his days.

* * *

Bo and Luke had made it to where the others were collected in front of the barn. Jesse spotted them and headed to give them both a hug. 

"I'm so glad y'all are safe," he said, drawing both into his arms. Then he stepped back and said, "If you boys ever scare me like that again, I'll whoop both of ya. I mean it, now."

Daisy waved at them from the truck, relieved that they were all right. She would have walked out there, except she didn't feel like getting her crutches up and having to deal with the trouble of hobbling over there.

Up ahead, Luke could see where Ali and Rachel were being fussed at by a shorter woman with blonde hair and pink pajamas. He guessed she might have been their sister Eve. From the sound of things, she didn't sound very happy either.

"You two have really pushed my buttons this time!" Eve hissed through clenched teeth. "All I ask for is a little honesty an' understandin' around here, and what do ya do? Run off, sneak around, an' get into it with a bunch of criminals!"

"Bo an' Luke ain't criminals!" Rachel defended them.

"I was referring to the guys tied in the police car," Eve glared at her. "But while we're on the subject of these two boyfriends of yours—"

"They're not _boyfriends_," Ali corrected, although during the past few days they might as well all have been dating each other, as much time as they spent with each other. "An' it wasn't their fault this happened, it just----it just _happened _is all."

Eve ran her fingers through her hair, irritated beyond imagination.

"Why are you gettin' on to just us anyway?" Ali decided to add while Eve was being silent. "Cooter knew about this, too, y'know!"

Cooter, who was off to the side, heard his name mentioned and gave a slightly innocent look at Eve, who had turned her head to stare at him, then looked back at her sisters, and looked at Cooter again. She crossed her arms, turned to face him, smiled and said in a sweet voice,

"Oh, baby cousin." She pointed at him and made a "come hither" motion with her finger. "A word, if you please."

Cooter gave Ali a glare, as if to say "_Gee, thanks"_. He did as he was "told", and Eve put an arm around his side and began to walk off with him as if the best of friends.

"Cooter, dear sweet lil' cousin of mine," she started off. "I know you would never purposely keep things from me, knowing how extremely upset I'd be if I ever found out that you _were_. So I can only assume that my awful, no-good sisters must have talked you into not tellin' me an' played out like they were sweet an' innocent. You felt sorry for them an' decided to not to tell me anything that was going on, right? So not to get them in trouble?"

Cooter gave her a side-ways look as if she'd done lost her mind. "Uh----you can say it that way."

Eve nodded. She of course knew better to believe her own theory of what had happened. She stopped and stood in front of him and looked up---which she could onlyaccomplish by tilting her chin up a few inches in order to lookhim in the face."Well, then. Since the three of y'all like to keep secrets from me and come up with new ideas to make me go insane enough to go to a mental home, why don't _you _take the girls into your own care and let them live with you for a few days?" She emphasized the word "_you_" by poking him in the chest.

"Ummm, y'know I don't think that's such a good-----Evie, I can explain."

"Don't bother. I can believe that Ali would pull a thing like this, an' Rachel too since Ali was in on it, but _you_? I _can't _believe that _you_wouldn't let me know what was going on." She shook her head, mostly to herself and to the whole situation. "Just take me back to my car, the girls can pack some stuff, and they can stay with you until my mind is forgiving enough to take them back."

She stormed off to the tow truck. Cooter stood there with this astonished look on his face. Ali and Rachel figured it safe enough to trot up to him.

"What happened?" Rachel asked. "How mad is she?"

"_Mad,_" Cooter answered. "Thanks, y'all. Now she's mad at _me_, and I didn't even do anything. An' y'all are stayin' with me for a while."

"What?" Ali gawked. "She's _that _mad? For cryin' out loud, she better be glad we ain't dead or whatever!"

"She's mad 'cause she'd been kept in the dark about this whole thing, an' she feels like we don't trust her enough to come to her for help on stuff," Rachel explained. "I just knew this was gonna happen. At the very beginning, I thought we should have told her somethin'."

Cooter gave Ali a "look". "Don't say stuff like that about your sister," he said, referring to what she was saying before Rachel began talking. "She _is_ glad y'all ain't dead. How would you like it if everybody in your family just decided to not tell what was goin' on inside your home?" He shook his head as if she'd never understand anything and huffed off.

"Great, now both Eve _and _Cooter's mad at us," Rachel moaned. "Why'd you have to go an' tell Eve that he knew what was goin' on anyway? He promised not to tell her, an' he didn't. Then you go an' pin blame on him."She stormed off as well, leaving Ali with her arms crossed.

"Why's everybody blaming _me _for?" she muttered to herself, following her younger sister.

**Balladeer: What a mess. Everybody's mad at everybody---I hate it when that happens, especially amongst relatives.**

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	17. Sisters Apart

A/N: Hm, I was expecting more reviews than what I got from those last two chapters...oh well, here's chapter seventeen anyway.

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* * *

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**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Seventeen: Sisters Apart**

**Balladeer: Everyone had a long night after what all had occurred. Boss stayed in the jail moanin' and tryin' to get Enos to let him out, Lulu cried her eyes out when she found out, Cooter couldn't sleep because Ali an' Rachel kept arguin' all night at each other, Eve was too mad to sleep so she baked a double-chocolate fudge cake, Rosco was so emotionally shaken that he had stayed cooped up in his office holdin' Flash all night (which would explain why Enos had to listen to Boss moanin'), Bo an' Luke stayed up worryin' about everybody else, and----well, Uncle Jesse an' Daisy slept fine. **

**About ten o'clock that next morning, the Feds came and picked up Boss. I can imagine they're goin' to hear plenty of complaints from that little fella about how things are run where they're takin' him. According to how things went along, they said, a trial would take place sometime in the next few weeks to try and put Boss away in the state prison for whatever all he could be held accountable for.**

Eve, who had somehow managed to drag herself to work that morning (although she saw no reason to, what with her employer behind bars, yet she had nothing better to do), was beginning to become concerned about Rosco. Not once since she had arrived at nine o'clock, about two hours ago, had he emerged from his office. Whatever happened last night must have pulled quite a number on him.

Not able to handle the silence of the seemingly empty courthouse, she decided she'd at least check on him. She tap-tap-tapped on his door, not necessarily expecting an answer, and cracked it open a little bit.

"Rosco?" she asked, peeking her head inside. She didn't receive an answer, as she had predicted, but she saw he was sitting in his desk chair facing out towards the window that was behind his desk. Flash's head popped into view from his lap and she started whining.

Eve allowed herself to come in, quietly shut the door, and made her way to his desk. "Rosco?" she said, trying to get him to turn around in his chair and face her. Still not getting an answer, she promptly went around the desk to where he could see her. Which he couldn't, seeing how she saw he was fast asleep in his chair.

Nevertheless, Enos had told her that he'd been in this office since last night without so much as making a noise, so she made up her mind to wake him up. Besides, it was lunchtime.

"Rosco?" she said again, gently shaking him awake.

He jumped a little upon opening his eyes and seeing Eve in his office, which nearly scared the mess out of Eve. He rubbed his eyes awake, Flash jumping from his lap and onto the floor.

"Rosco, are you all right?" she asked him as he kept trying to wake up. "You've been in here for hours."

"What time is it?" he asked, stretching now.

"A little after twelve—in the afternoon," she answered, crossing her arms and stepping back so he could get up. "You okay? Enos an' I've been worried about ya, what with you takin' refuge in here all night and half the day."

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, sticking his hands half-way in his pockets and looking out the window in a sad sort of way. "I don't feel too good about myself."

Sensing a delicate matter a-foot, Eve simply asked, "You wanna talk about it?"

He sighed. This whole matter was depressing him. Eve knew this, although she didn't know the whole story.

"Come on, sit back down," she told him, swinging the chair around to where it faced away from the window, took him gently by the arm and sat him down in it herself. "Now you just relax . . . " she started off, drawing the curtains, getting behind the chair, cracking her knuckles, and then proceeded in giving him a well-needed shoulder massage. "An' you tell me what's eatin' at ya."

She felt him relax a little, which was good, and he said, "You ever felt like—everybody around ya is _against_ ya?"

She had to grin a little. "Just my sisters. Why, you feel like that?"

"All the time," he admitted. "I get this feelin' every now and then that—I don't know—like everybody's out to get me or somethin'. Especially after my pension got cancelled. Boss had told me that the people of Hazzard had voted to get rid of it, so he talked me into workin' alongside him doin' all kinds of mess in order to pay 'em back for it. 'Cept it turns out it was Boss the whole time and had nothin' to do with any of the townsfolk. So I've spent the last ten years of my last makin' an idiot outta myself, nobody trusts me anymore, and the one person that I thought was my friend was the person I should've been on the look out for the whole time."He sighed deeply, relaxing a little more. "So now it's like—I don't know who I'm supposed to go to anymore. And nobody sure wants anything to do with me, not after everythin' I've done."

Eve didn't know what all it was that he had been involved in, but it must've been some pretty bad stuff to make him think that he was all alone in the world.

"Surely not _everybody _thinks bad of ya," she told him.

"I don't see why they _wouldn't_."

"Aw, now don't talk that way. You did a good job last night, that ought to say somethin'."

"I wouldn't have done it if Boss hadn't threatened Flash. Or if he hadn't said all those horrendous things about me." Those words had really hurt him deep down. "Now the Feds are wantin' me to testify in court so they can put him away for a long, long time."

"And you don't want to."

"It's not really _that_, I don't guess. I mean, I'd rather not see him ever again but—I don't know, it's just that I thought we were friends and all. Feels funny havin' to say bad things about him in court. Besides, what if he tells them that I was involved in stuff and gets _me_ in trouble?"

"Take it from me, if he don't have evidence or any witnesses, you ain't gonna get in any trouble," Eve assured him. All this talk about courtrooms was making her pine for her old job.

"All he has to do is call the Dukes an' sweet-talk them into bein' witnesses. They know everythin' I've done just as well as Boss does."

"Now you don't know if they're gonna listen to Boss or not, do ya?" she asked, moving her hands over to massage the back of his neck. "Goodness, you're tense. Stop worryin' so much, chief. Take a deep breath and relax. There we go, that's better."

"You could put someone in a hypnotic state doing this," Rosco said, who had felt like nodding off to sleep in the past few minutes—except of course for the fact that some lovely lady was the one responsible for making him feel that way.

"I could, but knowing me they _still _wouldn't do as they were told," she replied, mainly referring to her two sisters. She went back to rubbing his shoulders. "Anythin' else got you frazzled, or was that all of it?"

**Balladeer: She's standin' there massaging his shoulders and she's askin' him what else has him frazzled? I think I know the answer to that one.**

"I think that was about it," he told her, then sat silent for a pause. "Eve?"

"Yes?"

"You think I'm a bad guy? I mean, ya think it would be hard for me to get my old reputation back, I mean to say? 'Cause Boss said it was too late for me."

"Oh, pish-posh, don't listen anything that man has to say. You just look after yourself, take care of your business, do what ya feel ya gotta do, and soon enough you'll realize that the world ain't against ya." Her fingers stopped workin' their magic and she leaned her arms around to try and fix his tie better. "You'll be all right. Just relax and take it easy." She grabbed his coffee mug that was sitting on his desk and looked down in it. "You want some fresh coffee?"

One minute she's playing psychiatrist, the next café waitress. Rosco thought it rather cute.

"That'd be nice," he told her with a smile. "Thanks, Eve."

"Anytime." She was half way out the door when she turned her head back and said, "And, to answer your question----no, I don't think you're a bad guy."

* * *

Bo and Luke decided to head over to Cooter's after getting perhaps four hours of sleep. Upon arrival, they realized that they had perhaps had more sleep than either of the girls plus Cooter all added up together. Cooter had puffy red eyes from lack of sleep and could hardly even keep them open long enough to make just a few seconds of eye contact.

"Hi, guys," he said exhaustedly, sitting in a chair and trying to stay awake long enough to drink some coffee. "What a night, huh?"

"Ya look like you been mauled, Cooter," Bo commented. "What happened?"

"Those crazy girls—yawn—'scuse me, kept me up screamin' at each other. Got maybe an hour of sleep when it started up." He shook his head tiredly. "I feel terrible. I might not even open up the garage today, I'm so sleepy."

"That's fine, Cooter," Luke told him, patting his friend on the back. "You do that, and we'll get the girls off your back, whattaya say?"

"Be my guest. Thanks, guys," he smiled best he could.

* * *

It took some pretty good persuasion from Bo and Luke to get the girls to ride in the General together, seeing how they weren't on friendly terms right then and there. At last, they decided to just go on with it and just not talk to each other. The boys had fishing gear in the General's trunk, and they were headed towards Hazzard Pond.

After arriving and getting everything set up, Luke told Bo to take Rachel down by the giant cypress tree and then Luke would take Ali down to the other end of the pond by the old water oak. Not only would it keep the girls separated, but also it would avoid getting all their lines tangled up into one big mess.

Rachel surprised Bo by being able to stick a live cricket on a hook. He had thought that perhaps she'd be squeamish about stuff like that, for some reason. She cast a pretty good throw with her line and it landed a good ways out into the water, the little red-and-white bobber floating at the surface.

"An' here I was thinkin' I'd have to teach ya how to fish," Bo grinned, getting his own line ready for tossing.

"Our dad taught us," Rachel told him as she watched the bobber. "When we'd go to the lake, he'd sort of talk us into fishin' with him. Me an' Eve are the only ones that really wanted to learn though. Ali can't fish worth a flip."

"I bet ol' Luke's gonna have himself a time, then," Bo chuckled, finally getting his own line out in the water.

"I guess," she sighed. "Y'know, I don't like it when we all argue," she mentioned, suddenly changing the subject. "Makes it feel like we're more of a broken family than we let on. Ali's so danged stubborn, she could argue til' Armageddon came rollin' by. Eve gets so panicky and tempermental, she can't help but argue if somethin' goes wrong. Especially if it involves kinfolk gettin' in the way of danger."

"What about you, do I need to worry that you'll explode any second now?"

Rachel laughed. "No, I ain't like that. I get into it when I get tired of hearin' the other two fussin' at each other. Besides, I don't like bein' left out." She gave Bo a smile. "Thanks for bein' so nice to us, even when y'all didn't even know who we were."

"Aw, shucks, it ain't nothin'. Y'all are fun to hang around."

"I'm bein' serious, Bo."

Bo turned his head to notice that she was still looking at him, which kinda gave him butterflies. Before he even knew what he was doing, he leaned his head down and kissed her.

* * *

Just as Bo had said, Luke _was _havin' himself a time with helpin' Ali get her bait on and stuff like that. She avoided the cricket like the plague and seemed to be devoid of all knowledge that had anything to do with the art of fishing.

"I can't believe you never fished before," Luke couldn't help but say as he poked the cricket onto the hook.

Ali felt her stomach flip. "I did a few times when I was little, but I was never into it enough to actually learn to do it on my own. Eve an' Rachel know how."

Luke handed her the rod and took her hands to try and show her how to hold it. Ali's face turned slightly red when his big warm hands, slightly hardened over years of farm-labor, touched her smaller delicate ones.

"Thanks," she smiled, flustered now. "Uh, now what?"

"Throw it in the water," he answered. "Not the whole rod, just fling the line out there."

Clumsily, Ali managed to get the line to go out about three feet from shore.

Not wanting to dishearten her, Luke said, "That's good, it's okay for a first try."

He cast his own line, which Ali watched sail through the air and land much farther out than hers.

"Oh, well," she sighed, leaning back against the tree they were in front of. "Rather be here than havin' to listen to the other two scream at me 'bout how everything's _my_ fault."

"Say what?"

"It's true. They all blame me for everything, namely Eve. She thinks I've possessed Rachel into a life of delinquency, it was my idea to keep secrets from her in the first place, and to add to it she thinks I'm a complete failure. Rachel blames me for making her keep her mouth shut and for gettin' Eve and Cooter mad at her, and then Cooter—well, he's probably equally mad at the both of us. Even more so now, since we kept him up all night."

Luke had to refrain from laughing at the image of his best friend having to lay in bed and put up with hearing two screaming females all night. He was only glad that Daisy was the only girl in the house and had no other girl to argue with hour after hour.

Neither one had been paying attention when all of a sudden Ali's bobber went under and the line grew taut. Ali jumped up, not knowing what in the world to do, and Luke grabbed her rod to keep it from sliding down and into the water.

"Oh my Lord, fish swim that close to shore?" she asked with a wild look in her eyes.

"Might've come up for some minnows," he answered briefly, trying to heave the creature onto shore. "Get the net!"

Ali scrambled from where she was sitting, grabbed the net, and hurried back. "Okay, now what?"

"Go to the water's edge an' when I get the fish up in the air, place the net under the fish an' I'll drop him in."

To Ali the simple procedure sounded tricky, but she did as she was told. Luke, who was standing now, trying to lift the fish from the water. At last, he managed to get it up, and Ali slipped the net underneath it. Luke let it drop in, which caused Ali to almost drop the net from the sudden dead-weight of the fish. Luke rushed to help her and dragged it onto shore.

"Wow, that thing is huge!" Ali exclaimed as she watched the rather large catfish's gills go up and down as it gasped for air.

"I can't believe it came that close to shore," Luke wondered out loud. "Well, now you can tell everyone that you caught your own fish."

"Yeah, I did, didn't I?" Ali realized with a big smile on her face, feeling rather triumphant, which made Luke grin as well.

* * *


	18. A Letter for Luke

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Eighteen: A Letter for Luke**

**Balladeer: About a week's gone by since the episode with the barn. Eve finally granted forgiveness to her sisters, mainly as an act of mercy to Cooter's not bein' able to handle livin' with a couple of girls. Bo an' Rachel been anglin' for alone time since that kiss at the pond, Enos had been visitin' the Dukes everyday (mainly to see Daisy to "see if her ankle was doin' okay"), an' poor ol' Rosco was still dealin' with his little demons. But I'll get to all that later, I wanna know what this is the mailman is droppin' off at the Dukes.**

Jesse sorted through the mail, tossing out the junk mail and placing necessary items on the kitchen table. One article caught his attention especially, seeing how it didn't have _his _name on it. It had Luke's on it. And one glance at the sender's address sent a sinking feeling to his heart.

He heard some creaking from the other end of the house, which he knew from years of living there that it was someone walking on the floor towards the kitchen. Luke appeared into view, yawning and scratching his face that still needed to be shaved that morning.

"Mornin', Uncle Jesse," he said in a casual voice. He nodded at the envelopes he saw piled up. "Anythin' interestin' in the mail?"

"Funny you should ask that," Jesse said quietly, handing Luke the envelope that bore his name. "This came for ya."

Luke looked at who the sender was and, like Jesse, got a sinking feeling. He quickly turned the letter over and ripped it open, tossing the envelope to the floor and hastily read its contents. Jesse sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, not particularly wanting to hear what it had to say.

Luke finished reading, lifted his head, and stared blankly into space, his bright blue eyes having grown a shade dimmer.

**Balladeer: You can guess that it ain't a letter sayin' he won the lottery.

* * *

**

The whole family was quiet at breakfast time, even Bo who was usually the one that started the morning-time chatter. Daisy picked at her eggs a little, not much in the mood for eating but she knew Jesse was have a fit if she wasted anything. Bo, in a similar manner, poked a fork into his pancakes and would stare at it for quite some time before finally putting it in his mouth. Luke simply had not even touched the _fork_ yet.

Jesse noticed this behavior, and although he was in a somber mood himself, he said, "Now, listen here, kids. I know this whole thing was unexpected, but that doesn't mean that you're not gonna eat my cookin'. Luke's gonna be leavin' soon, an' I want him to remember breakfast as a happy time, not a sad one."

"Sorry, Uncle Jesse," Bo muttered, cutting off another hunk of pancakes and placing them in his mouth.

"Did it say how long they wanted you back for, Luke?" Daisy finally piped up.

He shook his head. "All I know is that they want me to help train some new recruits. Hopefully a war doesn't start while I'm away, so that I get to come home sooner."

Bo stayed silent. He didn't like all this talk about his cousin, his best friend, heck his _brother_, leavin' him again.

"When ya supposed to leave?" Daisy asked, tryin' to keep the conversation going.

"June twenty-eighth. Two weeks away."

"Two weeks!" Bo exclaimed. "That ain't much time!"

"It's more time than one day," Jesse grumbled at his younger nephew. "You should be thankin' the Good Lord that we have that much time before he leaves."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

In the most silent car ride ever taken in the General, Bo drove Luke and the girls down to the creek just for the sake of some peace and quiet. Upon getting out, Bo was too upset to be around Luke at the moment and took off on his own. Rachel called for him to wait up and went racing after him, leaving Luke and Ali to themselves.

"Back to the Marines, huh?" Ali asked in a much less chipper voice than she usually spoke in, and for once not polluting the air with a smoking cigarette. She leaned up against the hood of the car. "You wanna go?"

Luke leaned up beside her. "It's not really a matter of if I wanna go or not. If they want me, I have to. But then, I suppose I wouldn't have signed up in the first place if I _didn't _want to go." He looked around him and sighed. "But it's gonna be hard leavin' again. It was hard enough the first time, but even harder now, since I know what military life is like now. Not lookin' forward to those mess hall meals, I can tell ya that."

His slight attempt at humor didn't seem to work. In fact it just made him even more sad that he wasn't going to be around the family at the dinner table for a good long while. He felt a hand on top of his own.

"It'll be all right, sarge," Ali told him, trying to make the both of them feel better. She pried his hand off the car and turned it over to where it was palms-up.

"Whatcha doin'?" Luke asked as she held his hand and spread his fingers out.

"Readin' the lines," she answered. She sounded so serious, Luke almost burst out laughing, but he had a feeling that would tick her off so he stifled it. She moved her free hand over his as if she were an actual palm reader. "Hmm, I sense greatness in you, young Duke. You will go far in the journey of life."

"An' why is that?" he asked, playing along.

"Hush, you'll break my concentration," she said in a calm voice. Her thumb swept along a crease that lied below the base of his fingers. "You have good heart."

"Hasn't failed on me, yet."

Ali rolled her eyes and continued on. "You have good heart meaning that you are filled with compassion and understanding," she repeated, with the added words slightly rushed in. She swept her thumb along another crease. "You have quick thinking and an uncanny amount of common sense. It will aid you in times of trouble."

Luke got this playful grin on his face. "Which one says I'm a good kisser?"

At that, Ali jerked her head up and gave him this wide-eyed stare. She apparently didn't think to include that one in her little role-play. She tried to collect herself and said, "Uh----the spirits can not tell that, because they do not know."

"I guess the spirits need to be educated, don't they?" Luke told her, leaning in closer to her. She closed her eyes and let him kiss her, this sort of shocking feeling going through her whole body. As soon as it started, it was over though, much to her dismay and to _his _pleasure at being able to torture somebody.

"The spirits have an answer yet?"

She hazily asked him, "Huh?"

"My question? Which one says I'm a good kisser?"

She blinked, trying to remember what all had happened before, then suddenly remembered. "Oh. Right. Uh—" She grabbed his hand, which had moved during the kiss, and picked a random crease. "That one."

Luke chuckled to himself.

* * *

Rachel had caught up with Bo and the two of them were sitting inside an old storage building that hadn't been used by anybody in _several _years, yet was surprisingly still nice and clean inside. It was the only place that Bo could find that seemed to be away from everybody. Bo had been pretty silent for a while, to which Rachel wasn't used to. _She _was supposed to be the silent one.

"I can't believe he's leavin'," he finally said. "He had said he wouldn't ever leave again but he is."

"Bo, it's the Marines. If they ask him back, he _has _to go."

"I know it but—dang it, why'd he have to join anyway? Why couldn't he have just stayed in Hazzard? It's not like there ain't nothin' to do here, considering that we have more car chases here than New York City."

Rachel didn't really have an answer for that one. "Well—I don't know why he joined, but it has to for a good cause if Luke were to join it. I mean, he wouldn't have if it were a bad thing, would he? But at least you got two weeks with him. An' he probably won't be gone but a few months at the least."

"That's what Uncle Jesse said. But that don't change the fact that he's gonna be leavin'."

Rachel laid her head on Bo's arm. "Everytime my mom and dad went away, I'd miss them, too. Even though I didn't really know that much about them personally, I'd miss 'em. At least you have some sort of bond with Luke. An' if somethin' happens to where he can't come back, God forbid, you'll have some memories. More than I do, anyways."

Bo smiled a little. "For someone that don't talk too much, you sure got a lotta sensible things to say."

"'Cause I spend all day thinkin' 'em up in my head instead of wastin' my breath on somethin' stupid," she explained, partly joking and partly serious.

"Hey, you tryin' to tell me somethin'?" Bo kidded, nudging her head with his shoulder.

"No," she grinned, lightly shoving him but it didn't move him whatsoever.

"'Cause it sure sounded like you were," he grinned, giving her a kiss. He noticed that she had the look in her eyes that he had seen many other girls give him, but when he saw it in Rachel it seemed a little different somehow. So he gave her another kiss—then another—then another----


	19. Nowhere to Turn

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Nineteen: Nowhere to Turn**

It had been nearly a week since everyone had found out about Luke's leaving. Eve was rushing about trying to get ready for work, Ali plopped on the couch flipping through the channels of the television. Rachel was in the bathroom, feeling rather sick to her stomach. Or she _hoped _it was her stomach. She felt rather dizzy and light-headed, as if ready to hurl up last night's supper at any given second.

Someone started beating on the door, which made Rachel's head hurt. "Rach!" Eve yelled through the door. "Other people live here besides you, y'know! Hurry up!"

Trying her best to sound perfectly healthy, she called out, "I'm comin'!" Something was wrong. Very wrong. She should have had her period by now, and the way she was acting today it was like she was----no, she couldn't possibly be _that_. Could she?

* * *

Eve dropped the girls off in town, against her better judgment, and Rachel pulled Ali to the side to talk. Ali had noticed there was something bothering her younger sister, and listened intently as Rachel told her what was going on. Soon after, Ali herself got scared for her sister and bought her a "something" (as Ali called it) from the nearby store. Ali shoved the package into Rachel's hands and ushered her into the closest public bathroom she could find, and simply waited outside the door for her to finish. 

Ali wiped her hands across her face, her stomach feeling a little woozy itself as if _she _were the one having to go through this. She hoped, for Rachel's sake, it turned out negative. She heard a flush from the inside. Okay, now she'd have to wait a few minutes for the test to show a result. Then either their fears would be realities or the whole thing would be nothing to worry about.

After an eternity of waiting three minutes outside the bathroom, the door finally creaked open. Ali immediately sprang up from her position of leaning against the wall and awaited what her sister had to say. Rachel gave her a forlorn look and had a few tears on her face. Ali's face turned white, knowing what that meant. Then she opened her arms and gave Rachel a hug, letting her cry. Ali felt a tear run down her cheeks, thinking about how fast her little sister was going to grow up now.

* * *

Bo plopped down in one of the chairs at the Boar's Nest. He and Luke had seen the girls on the sidewalk and picked them up, and upon arrival Rachel had told him the situation before bursting out into tears. 

"A baby," he muttered, leaning his elbows onto the table and placing his head in his hands. "A baby."

Luke couldn't believe it either. He had thought that Bo had _some _sense in his head to use some protection, but apparently he was wrong. They were alone at their table for the moment, Rachel feeling sick again and Ali taking her to the ladies' room.

"What're ya goin' to do?" Luke asked him, his voice trying to stay calm.

"How am I supposed to know? I didn't plan this to happen, I mean—I never thought about this kinda thing happenin' before."

"Nobody does, but it _has _happened, an' you two need to come up with some kinda plan," Luke informed him, trying to help his cousin think logically. "She's pregnant. She's nineteen. She doesn't have any source of income, except living off her sister. There's no way she can afford a baby."

"In case ya ain't noticed, I don't exactly have a job either."

"Calm down."

"Calm down?" Bo asked in a slightly raised voice. "I just find out I'm gonna be a dad an' ya want me to _calm down_?"

"If it'll help ya think clearly, yes."

Bo sighed deeply and crossed his arms. "What would _you_ do?"

Luke almost laughed. "Me? First of all, I'd 've been smart enough to use protection."

"It was a spur of the moment thing."

"It doesn't matter. Y'know you're gonna have to tell Uncle Jesse, right?"

"I _know _that, Luke. I just don't know _when_. I'm still tryin' to decide how to handle this. Come on, Luke, help me out here."

Luke didn't really know what to tell his cousin. "Bo----I'm leavin' in a week. I ain't gonna be around to help you with this, as much as I'd like to. Besides, you're a grown man. Ya need to learn to think of things on your own. An' when ya make a decision on what to do, I'll support ya an' while I'm here I'll help ya out. But I can't tell ya what to do, Bo. You have to tell _yourself_ what to do."

"I thought ya might say somethin' like that."

* * *

Rosco was sitting on the steps in front of the Hazzard Courthouse watching the townspeople walk past as they went to their workplace or simply to the stores to pick up whatever was needed. To think that he had thought these people had tried to ruin his life. He couldn't believe he had fell for Boss Hogg's lies these whole years. Half these people probably didn't even know him personally. 

A little boy, about seven or eight, with an ice cream cone came walking by. His shoelaces were untied and he accidentally tripped on them. He caught himself before he landed to the ground but the sudden jerking motion caused the ice cream cone to go flying out of his hand and SPLAT onto the ground.

Rosco got this extremely strange feeling as he sat there and stared curiously at the fallen dessert. He remembered something Boss had told him a long time ago about "bein' creative" when it came to dishing out charges to people. Rosco sat there and could think of a few reasons on why he should write this kid up for littering on public property, causing a walking surface to become a dangerous slip-n-slide area, and perhaps even ticket him for not tying shoelaces and say that it could lead to possible self-harm.

The kid shrugged, muttered something about how the ice cream didn't taste that good anyway, and kept on walking with his hands stuck down in his pockets. That would be a charge for leaving a crime scene and not reporting an "accident". So there was one, two—_five _separate charges he could come up with for someone simply dropping an ice cream cone on the sidewalk.

But that was when Boss was in charge. Boss was no longer even in the county, much less standing right there beside the sheriff yelling at him to come up with something stupid just so he could get the money owed for the tickets. Old habits are hard to break, though, and Rosco sat there and argued in his head about how it seemed sensible to make the perpetrator cough up his allowance money and then how ridiculous it was to make some little kid have to pay for accidentally dropping his ice cream cone, which he had said he didn't like anyways. Of course he could've been just sayin' that to make the dropping more tolerable. Rosco wished desperately that there was somebody there to tell him what to do. He seemed to have a problem with making his own decisions, and here he was being faced without nobody to turn to in order to help him out.

The kid was halfway down the street, his shoelaces still flapping alongside him. Rosco stood up where he was sitting and called out, "Hey, kid!"

The boy in question turned around and shouted, "Yeah?"

Rosco was quiet for a minute, as if to go over his options in his head again. "Come 'ere a minute," he told him, waving him over.

The child went over to him, a little curious look on his face. "What I do?"

"Nothin', I just wanted to talk," Rosco assured him. "How much that ice cream cost ya?"

"'Bout thirty cents. How come?"

Rosco dug down in his pocket and handed him a dollar bill. "Go getcha another one. It's hot out today."

The little boy couldn't believe his luck as he stared at the dollar that now sat in his hand. "Gee, thanks, Mr. Sheriff, sir!" he grinned, his smile showing that he had pulled a few teeth in the past few months.

"Make sure to tie them shoes, so ya don't drop it this time either."

"I will," the boy promised. "Thanks, again!"

That smile the kid threw him before he ran off down the street gave the sheriff a rather warm feeling inside. It reminded him of back in the days when he'd had that helpful attitude about him all the time, and how everybody seemed to appreciate it. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad going back after all.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" he heard from behind him, giving him a little spook. He turned around to see Eve walking down the steps to stand beside him.

"You been up there the whole time?" Rosco asked, nodding at the door.

"You could say that," she admitted, looking out at the street. "I thought you were gonna stare at that ice cream for the rest of your life, the way you just sat there after he dropped it. Sure looked excited when ya gave 'im that dollar." She turned her head and lifted it up a few inches to look him in the eyes, which were already focused on her. "What made ya decide to do that?"

He got this real funny feeling all of a sudden—not a bad funny, a good funny—and he almost forgot what he was going to say. "I—uh—I just . . .felt like it, I guess," he answered her, mentally beating himself for not coming up with something better. Seemed like every time he made eye contact with her, his mind went blank. It was horrendously embarrassing. "Y'know, doin' somethin' nice."

Evegave him a smile. "Well, I thought it was awful sweet," she told him, giving him a little rub on the arm, which only succeeded in making his mind even more of an empty slate."I'm goin' on my lunch break, wanna come with?"

He suddenly experienced a case of "cotton mouth" and tried his very hardest to make some sort of sentence come out. "I----um, well, I---I ---I already had somethin'---earlier." Well, it was the truth. He wished it wasn't but it was.

She seemed a little disappointed, but it didn't show too long. "Oh, well, I guess I'll drag Cooter along with me. Maybe some other time, huh, chief?"

"Yeah, sure," he grinned, trying to keep himself from shaking so much when she smiled back.

"All right. I'll see ya later," she told him, walking on down the sidewalk towards Cooter's garage. Flash had her head sticking out of Rosco's car and Eve stopped briefly to rub her on the head before continuing on her way. The dog turned her head as if to give her owner some sort of look that said, "You idiot."

Rosco shook his head at Flashand muttered, "I know it."


	20. Somethin' Unexpected

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Twenty: Somethin' Unexpected**

Luke had awoken the next morning like he usually did, rubbed a hand through his hair and tossed his pillow at Bo. Normally, Bo would have risen up and threw it back and start a pillow fight. Today he didn't. He just laid there.

"Aw, Bo, you party pooper," he said, getting up and going over to Bo's bed to rip the covers off of him. Instead of seeing Bo, however, he saw a bunch of pillows piled up to make it _look _as if Bo were there. Luke became instantly aware that his cousin must have slipped off sometime in the night and immediately came out of their room to speak to Jesse and Daisy.

"Have y'all seen Bo?" he asked them, both in the kitchen.

"No," Jesse replied, getting a worried look on his face. "Why, what's going on?"

Luke ran outside and saw that the General had gone missing. He had a feeling that Bo may have come up with some kind of solution to his problem with Rachel, and he hoped it wasn't running away. Luke came back into the kitchen to a waiting uncle and cousin.

**Balladeer: Well, Luke told Jesse and Daisy the story of Bo an' Rachel, which 'bout near made Jesse hit the roof that his nephew could be so thick-headed. Meanwhile, at the Willows' residence, the same thing had happened when Eve tried to wake Rachel up and she just near had a panic attack. Of course, Ali didn't tell _her_ the story, not that she knew where Rachel was or anything, but she sure wasn't goin' to be the one to tell her that she was goin' to be a mother.**

**Everybody sat at home waitin' for their respective relative to come back home, except Eve who had to go to work, and at long last, Bo pulling into the yard. **

Jesse ran outside, followed by Daisy and Luke, and started shouting, "Boy, if you ever leave without tellin' someone where you're a-leavin' to again, I'm gonna whip the tar outta ya!"

"Sorry, Uncle Jesse, but I had to do it," Bo explained.

"Do _what_?" Luke asked. "Where in the world did you go?"

"Well—," Bo started off. "There was only one thing I could think of to get myself somewhat out of my problem, and since _you_ wouldn't help me" (_you_ meaning Luke) "I did it myself." And with that, Bo lifted up his left hand to show that he was wearing a----

"You got _married_?" Jesse shouted, steam coming out both ears.

Luke slapped his forehead. "Bo, the _one time _I let you do somethin' on your own . . ."

"To _who?_" Jesse continued to ask. "What are you boys hidin' from me? Someone better tell me somethin' before I lose my mind!"

Daisy had never seen their uncle so upset over something before. Just to make things a little more calm, she asked Bo, "Is it Rachel Willows?"

Bo gave her a strange look. "How'd you know?"

"You married some girl that you've known no more than a _month_?" Jesse asked in a gruff voice, then sighed and calmed down a little bit. "Well, it's done now," he muttered. "An' just where do you two think you're goin' to live?"

Luke decided to speak up. "As much as I hate to remind everyone, I'm leavin' next week, so Bo'll have our room to himself. They can stay there 'til they find their own place." He looked over at Jesse. "Unless of course, that's a problem."

"No, it's no problem," Jesse replied, shaking his head. "I don't know what gets into you boys sometimes. Where is this girl anyway?"

"I had to drop her off somewhere so she could tell her sister," Bo answered, hoping that she wasn't getting lectured on anything.

* * *

Eve's eyes were almost crossed, she was so mad. "_Married?_" she asked in a raised voice, plopping down in her desk chair after Rachel told her the news. "Have you gone loco? Did you take some kind of _stupid _pill this morning?" 

"No," Rachel argued. "I wish you wouldn't be so upset 'bout this."

"Upset? UPSET? Rach, I'm _infuriated_ with you! How could you _do _somethin' like this? What about college? How are y'all supposed to support yourselves? Where do you intend to live? What possessed you to do this in the first place?"

"Bo's takin' care of everythin'," Rachel answered calmly. "An' I did it 'cause I love 'im."

"No, you have a _crush _on him. That's all this is. You have a little crush on some local boy an' somehow he talked you into abandoning your common sense and gettin' married."

"That's not true!" Rachel yelled. "An' stop talkin' to me like I'm some stupid kid! I'm nineteen years old, I can do what I see fit! Just because your own marriage sucked, doesn't mean that mine is goin' to end up like that!"

With that, Rachel stormed out of the building, aggravated at herself that she had even gone over there in the first place. She should have known Eve would blow things out of proportion. Eve sat in her chair, her heart stung at that last thing that her sister had said to her. Her marriage "sucked", sure, and even though it had been two years since the divorce, the things that made it that way still hurt her. Just looking back on that one year with Nick made a tear fall from her eyes.

* * *

"Cooter," Rachel started off as she sat in the garage with her cousin. She had just told him the story of her and Bo, leavin' out the baby part. "Why you reckon Eve always gets so mad at us, meaning me an' Ali? Seems like no matter what we do, she finds somethin' wrong with it." 

Cooter rubbed his chin, not too entirely comfortable discussing one of the girls behind their backs. "Well----I think it's 'cause she feels like she has to be y'alls mother seein' how . . . y'know. Y'all do somethin' that seems a lil' dangerous or immature, an' she goes off into one of her moods, kinda like a mother would do. Besides, she had a rough time with that husband of hers, so she knows how some people can be in the real world an' she feels like she's got to shield y'all from it."

Rachel started laughing. "Ooookay, I wasn't expectin' anything philosophical, but it works. I guess I forgive her."

"I still can't believe y'all got _married_," Cooter stated, shaking his head. "Kinda crazy." He gave her a look. "You must be pregnant or somethin'."

Rachel jerked her head at her cousin and stared at him with a shocked look on her face. "Excuse me?"

"Don't look at me like I just pulled that outta thin air," he told her. "Contradictory to what most people think about me, I ain't stupid. You expect me to think that y'all got married on a whim?"

Rachel couldn't believe this. She slumped down in her seat and stared out in front of her. "Ya can't tell Eve."

"No, no, no, I've been down _that _road before. I ain't keepin' anythin' else from _her _again."

"But, Cooter, this is really serious! If she finds out I'm havin' a baby, she'll----I dunno, _disown _me or somethin'!"

"Don't be ridiculous. She might be tough at times, but she ain't cold-hearted. Besides, if she were to find out 'bout Bo Junior, she might not be so mad about the marriage."

"Yeah, 'cause she'll be even more mad about _why _we got married." She got up from her seat. "I shoulda known better than to come over here."

"Hey!" Cooter grabbed Rachel's arm, not roughly but firm enough to hold her in place. She turned her head to look at him. "Look," he said, a serious look on his face. "_I _won't tell your sister 'bout small fry, but _you _are goin' to eventually. I mean, after a few months, _everybody's _gonna notice that you'll be a little round in that area."

Rachel was quiet for a minute then responded, "I'll just tell her we got pregnant on our honeymoon."

Cooter released his younger cousin. "There. Problem solved. She can't get mad if she thinks it happened _post-_wedding. You just make sure everybody else knows that's what y'alls story's gonna be, all right? Especially Bo, he might open his big mouth before ya get to him."

* * *

THE NEXT DAY

**Balladeer: Seein' how she was married now, Rachel was to be movin' in with Bo at Jesse's house (until they could find their own place). Of course she couldn't very well do that until Luke left, which meant she could spend the rest of the week packin' all her stuff together.**

Eve watched her sister from the doorway of her room as she put all her belongings in bags and boxes. It seemed surreal to her. It was almost like she was packing up to leave her for the rest of her life.

"Rachel."

The younger turned her head to acknowledge that she heard her name being spoken, then went back to packing. "What?"

Eve walked inside her room a little ways. "Look," she sighed. "I'm sorry I got mad yesterday. I just wasn't expectin' ya to come in an' announce that you were married. I mean, you haven't even introduced me to this boy yet. It kinda scared me, is all." Rachel didn't answer. "I know I get mad real easy, but it's only 'cause I worry 'bout y'all. An' I guess I'm worried that you made a mistake by goin' through with this."

Rachel turned to face her sister. "I know that ya worry about us, but I wish you wouldn't. I know what I'm doin'. Just trust me on this. An' don't think that I'm not scared, 'cause I am."

Eve reached out to hug her, which she returned. Eve rubbed Rachel's back and said, "I trust ya. I just don't want ya endin' up like I did."

"You're still young----"

"It's too late for me, Rach," Eve said, almost as if she'd made up her mind a long time ago. "You're young, have all the time in the world for love and family-makin'. I had my chance an' it went along with twenty-five cent gas. Who gets married at thirty years old? Nobody."

"Don't talk like that. It's depressin' me. An' I still think that everyone has a soul mate out there, they just have to be found is all."

"That's cute, Rach, but I'm not too sure if I believe in that stuff anymore." She stepped back and rubbed her sister's hair. "You just make this work best you can. If ya get sick of the married life, you can always come back here."

"Thanks, but I'm not leavin' 'til next week, anyways."

"You want me to say all this stuff again when you _do _leave?"

"No."

"Okay, then."


	21. The GoodBye Party, Part One

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Twenty-One: The Good-Bye Party, Part One**

**Balladeer: The time came to where Luke had only four days left in Hazzard, so Lulu allowed them to use the Boar's Nest for big good-bye party for him. Just about everybody came, even some folks that nobody in Hazzard knew. **

Luke was sitting with his family, save for Daisy who was at the bar serving drinks, and also with Cooter—who might as well have been family. He knew that the party was meant to lift his spirits, but it was making him rather depressed. He wasn't going to see _any _of these people for God knew how long. However, he wasn't going to just up and leave, not after they went through the trouble of putting up a huge sign that said, "We'll Miss You, Luke!" across the top of the bar and even tying up balloons in some places. Besides, he couldn't act like this was upsetting him. _That _would upset Bo, Jesse, and whoever else cared about him.

Bo looked up towards the door, got a big grin on his face and jumped up to go see whoever it was. Luke watched him make a beeline for Mrs. Bo Duke, who had just arrived with her sisters.

"It's about time we met, wouldn't ya say?" Eve stated, shaking her new brother-in-law's hand. Her nerves were calmed down immensely know that she at least knew what the boy _looked _like. He seemed nice enough. And if Rachel were to have done this marriage thing regardless, at least she picked out someone that had good looks.

"Yes, ma'am," Bo replied, feeling as if he were being introduced to his mother-in-law instead of sister-in-law. "An' don't worry 'bout your sister none, I'll take good care of her."

"I'm sure you will."

"Hey, y'all can all come over to our table, there's plenty of room," Bo offered, already having Rachel by the hand and tugging her over to him.

**Balladeer: Ain't he a gent? **

Luke and Jesse both stood up when Bo arrived with the three ladies. Cooter didn't, of course, after all they were just cousins. Rachel had already met Jesse the other day when Bo had brought her to their house. Ali hadn't met him yet and Eve hadn't even met _Luke _yet.

"Weird. I finally get to met ya, an' it's at your _good-bye _party," Eve had to say, the irony being so obvious to her.

Luke laughed as he shook her hand. "Life's like that sometimes."

"Bo, you ain't gonna introduce me to your lovely wife an' in-laws?" Cooter asked from his seat, looking up at his relatives.

Ali held up a fist and he laughed.

The jukebox started playing an old favorite, Keith Whitley's_When You Say Nothing At All_, and several couples started going over to the dance area. Bo looked at Rachel.

"Whatcha say, darlin'?"

"Why not?" she replied, a little shyly even though most of her shyness had wore off by now.

Eve cleared her throat and pointed at the bar. "I'm gonna go get a drink. See you folks later."

That left just Cooter, Jesse (who sat back down), Luke, and Ali. Luke and Ali felt kinda funny just standing there in silence so Luke asked,

"You wanna dance?"

**Balladeer: Now if there's one thing that Ali _can't _do, it's slow-dance. Fast-dance, yeah. Slow-dance, no.**

"Yeah, sure," she said a little hesistantly, taking him by the hand.

As they left the area, Jesse glanced at Cooter and the latter gave him a big huge grin. "Forget it," the older man asked. "I'm not askin' _you _to dance." Cooter laughed.

Bo and Rachel were already wrapped up in each other's arms, as if they'd been married for years instead of just a few days. Seeing them made Ali feel warm and fuzzy inside, hoping one day she'd be like that. Luke took her in his arms and held one of her hands. He was perfectly comfortable with any kind of dancing, but Ali felt kinda out-of-place as she laid her head on his shoulder. She was used to the rockin' songs and the line-dancing sort of thing.

"If I step on your toes," she whispered. "Don't get agitated or anything."

"Darlin', when it comes to women, I don't get _agitated_ in the way you're talkin' about."

Her eyes widened at the slight sexual joke, getting this funny butterfly feeling in her stomach as she continued to stay close to him.

* * *

Eve watched both of her sisters dance with their respective beaus. She was glad they had seemingly found a couple of good ol' boys but her aching heart couldn't bear to watch them for more than just a few seconds. She sat on her stool at the bar sipping at her diet soda—she never drank anything alcoholic except at major events or at a very fancy restaurant—when the man sitting next to her (one that nobody knew) decided to turn his head and give her an up-and-down look with his eyes. 

"Well, hello there, lovely lady," he said with a sleazy grin.

Eve turned her head and smiled politely at the handsome man, but she had no interest whatsoever in anything he had to offer. She was still a little wary of some guys, especially the ones bold enough to call her a flattering name before he knew her _real _name.

"Hi," she said bluntly.

He seemed to get a little closer to her. "Whatcha say to me buyin' you a drink?" he asked. "A _real _drink, not some soda."

"I don't drink," she quipped, somewhat lying to the man but she really didn't want this guy buying her anything.

"Oh, I see," he smiled, looking her over again. "Shy, huh? I'll cure you of that, I assure ya."

She gave him a little grin, slightly smart-alecked but mostly polite. "Thanks but no thanks." She turned away from him and took another drink of her soda.

Apparently the man didn't know how to take a turn-down from a woman. He got this mad look in his eyes and grabbed her arm rather roughly. Eve gave him a wide-eyed look, partly from shock and partly from fear.

"Forget the curin', missy, you need to be taught some manners," he sneered, his grasp sending an icy cold feeling all the way down Eve's spine all the way to her toes.

She thought for a brief moment that he was going to strike her, and he probably would have if someone from behind hadn't grabbed his shoulder and jerked him around to the other side opposite of where he was already facing. He was about to mouth off at whoever was interrupting his "conversation" until he realized he was face-to-face with a cop—an angry looking cop, too.

"You gotta problem with your hearin', pal?" Rosco growled at him, his eyes flashing with anger.

The strange man grinned sarcastically. "My hearing's fine, officer, but thanks for askin'."

"Oh, then I guess you heard her when she said she said she didn't want a drink," Rosco asked him, his glare still fixed on the man's eyes.

Eve was so scared she was shaking, although she was barely concentrating on anything anybody was saying. The man's grabbing her made a whole rush of memories come floating back and she felt sick to her stomach and felt the need for fresh air.

"Yes, sir, I heard her," the man replied, not feeling so high-an'-mighty at the moment.

"Good. Now why don't you just get outta here before I lock you up for assault?"he said in a low voice.If there was one thing Rosco absolutely couldn't stand, it was guys like this that didn't have any respect for women—in this case, he _really _couldn't stand guys like this that didn't have any respect for _Eve._

The guy stuttered some sort of response, and hastily got up from his seat and half-ran out the door. Rosco just couldn't believe some guys in this world. He turned his direction towards Eve to ask if she was all right, except she wasn't even there anymore. He got a rather confused look on his face.

"Rosco?" he heard Daisy call from behind the bar. He glanced at her and she was giving him some kind of look that implied that she had seen what just happened and apparently thought it was cute. "She was lookin' a little pale, so she went out the back."

The back? How did she slip past him without him noticing? Of course he was mad at the time, so----"Thanks, Daisy," he smiled.

Daisy grinned and went back to wiping down the bar area. Her foot was still a little sore so she wasn't able to run around the tables giving everybody what they wanted.She was trying to keep allher weight off that leg, which was pretty hard, and when she felt it hurting, she would just sit down and let someone else do thedrinks for a while.

Presently, Enos showed up and sat in front of where she was standing.

"Hi, Daisy," he smiled.

"Hey, Enos. How ya been?"

"I'm fine," he told her, looking a little nervous. "You wanna dance?"

**Balladeer: That boy don't waste time, does he?**

Daisy got a sparkle in her eyes but it went away pretty fast. "Enos, you big meanie, you know I can't do nothin' with this bum ankle of mine."

"That's all right, I can pickya up so you won't have to use it."

The sparkle came back, and she threw her wet handtowel in a bucket labeled "Dirty Towels".


	22. The GoodBye Party, Part Two

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Twenty-Two: The Good-Bye Party, Part Two**

So far Ali hadn't stepped on Luke's toes, which was a surprise. That didn't mean that she knew what she was doing, but at least she hadn't screwed up any. She couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous of Rachel, who looked perfectly at ease.

"Bo?" Rachel asked quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Everything's goin' to be all right, with us I mean, isn't it?"

He gave her a squeeze. "Sure it will. We'll make it all right."

Ali smiled. "They're cute, huh?"

Luke glanced over at his cousin. "I reckon. Still kinda weird thinkin' of him not bein' a bachelor anymore."

"I can imagine. So when you get back from wherever, who gets the car?"

Luke smiled. "I am _so _gettin' the General. Besides, Bo can't exactly race around with a pregnant wife in the passenger seat, jumpin' over billboards and crashin' fences."

"He isn't gonna like that too much, is he?"

He shrugged. "Nope." Then without even thinking, "Oh well, at least he doesn't have to worry about meetin' any in-laws."

As soon as he said it, he knew he should have kept his mouth shut and almost promptly he felt a hand smacking him across his face, somebody muttering the words "Insensitive jerk" and then the sound of someone wearing heels taking off towards the door. Ali.

Luke instinctively placed a hand over the spot where he'd been slapped, a little shocked that it had happened but then he knew he probably deserved it. Cooter came jogging up to him.

"Hey, buddy, what you do my cousin?"

Luke told him. Cooter shook his head as if he couldn't believe it. Bo and Rachel had stopped dancing, having seen what happened and came over to the boys.

"Is she wantin' to leave already?" Rachel asked, who was _not _anywhere's near to wanting to go home.

"Looks that way," Luke said, still pressing a hand to his cheek.

Bo squeezed Rachel's hand. "_You _don't have to. Me an' Luke'll take ya home when _we _leave."

* * *

_Ugh, Alison Clarice, don't you dare cry!_, Ali screamed at herself mentally as she stormed outside, but she didn't listen to herself. She had never gotten so upset over someone mentioning her parents before, but somehow Luke making that remark really rubbed her the wrong way. Of course she might not have had to slap him so hard, but that was the only way she could think of to get her message across.

Great, now he was going away for however long thinking that she hated him. Wonderful.

She wiped tears from her eyes almost furiously, stood outside the front door of the Boar's Nest, looked around, and called out in a loud voice, "_EVE!" _She knew she was out there, she had seen her take off earlier as if she were sick or something. _"EVE!"_

_

* * *

_

Eve was leaned up against some old packing boxes that were piled up behind the building. The light that usually lit up the back door had gone out, so one would have had to depend on moonlight as the chief source of light. Nevertheless, whether it was dark as midnight or brighter than a Florida beach at noontime, Evelyn Rose Willows was crying her eyes out. Everytime she tried picturing the man at the bar's face, an image of Nick popped into her head and it was scaring the daylights out of her.

"Eve?"

She hadn't even heard the door open, but she didn't jerk in fear when she heard the gentle voice calling her name since she recognized who it belonged to and, almost like a magnet, went and attached herself to him with her arms around him and cried even harder.

Seeing Eve having been reduced to a sobbing heap made Rosco want to hunt that jerk down and beat the tar out of him and ban him from Hazzard County for the rest of his life, but he had a feeling that course of action would not be a smart idea at the moment. He placed his arms around her, letting one hand comb through her hair in efforts to soothe her.

She brought up one of her hands to try and wipe her tears away and said, "Hardly ever wear my hair down anymore. Know why? 'Cause Nick always wanted it up, and now it's just a habit." She started crying again. "He'd get so mad it I didn't do somethin' the way he wanted."

That was why the guy at the bar had bothered her so much. A selfish cad with no decency towards women. No wonder she didn't feel comfortable around other guys when she first met them. Just the thought of her having been married to one of those pigs and making her fall to pieces when she met someone like him, gave the sheriff this insane want to hunt down this Nick character and beat his face in.

"It's all right," he whispered, letting his chin rest on her head. "Nobody's here but me."

He took the hand that wasn't combing her hair and wiped the side of her face with it. It broke his heart that she was crying, even if it wasn't his fault that she was. Eve placed her hand over his to keep it where it was, as if she needed it there.

After she finally calmed down, she pulled back and used both her own hands to wipe her eyes. "Probably look like 'coon," she muttered to herself, just knowing her mascara was all over the place. Actually it wasn't, but she didn't need to know that.

_If 'coons looked half as good as you do, we sure wouldn't be shootin' at 'em,_ Rosco couldn't help but think. "You all right?"

"For now," she answered, letting him take her hands in his and intertwining the fingers. It seemed so natural for him to do that, that she didn't protest. If any other guy had done that, she would have tore off running for the hills.

"You sure?"

Their eyes were locked. Rosco felt like his heart was ramming in his throat. The stars in the sky were nothing compared to the ones in her eyes.

"Uh-huh," was all she could manage to say, an extreme case of butterflies building in her stomach. She wasn't scared of _him_, it was the possibility that perhaps----

"Eve?" he asked in a real soft voice, his head drawing nearer.

"Huh?"

They were so close they might as well have been kissing. If they didn't soon, she was going to have a heart attack.

"You're safe with me, y'know that, right?" he asked, _this _close to touching lips.

Her eyes with heavy-lidded. "Uh-huh."

He was just about to move his head down that last couple of millimeters towards her face when out of the blue—

"_EVE!_"

Eve jumped back, the outburst scaring her out of her senses. _Dammit, Ali_, she said in her mind, dreadfully disappointed that the interruption had taken place. _You an' your _perfect _timing._

"_EVE!_"

Rosco rubbed her hands. "It's all right," he said. "Gettin' late, an' you gotta work tomorrow."

Normally she would have asked, "What, and you _don't_?" but she couldn't exactly find her voice. As if she had asked anyway, he explained,

"I'm gonna be gone a few days. My sister an' I have to go to Boss's trial. Don't worry, Enos ain't gonna hurt ya none. He's a dipstick sometimes, but he's a good boy."

* * *


	23. Gone

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Twenty-Three: Gone**

"I'm movin' back to Atlanta," Ali announced unexpectedly two mornings after the party had taken place. Eve and Rachel exchanged glances and stared at their sister.

"I thought ya liked it here," said Rachel.

"I did. Now I'm not so sure." Truth was, she _did _like it there, but she just couldn't handle one sister being married and then her own self having apparently ruined any chances of herself becoming that way. Besides, he was leaving for who knew how long. What was the point in staying? "I'm leavin' the same day _you _leave, Rach. I'll help you move then I'll be on my way."

"An' whose car do ya plan on using?" Eve asked, crossing her arms.

Ali rolled her eyes. "Eve, may Rachel and I have permission to use your car?"

"If you so much as scratch it, I'll kill you. You an' Rachel drive it back and forth to the Dukes' place, then _I'll _drive you to Atlanta. An' where are you plannin' on stayin' exactly?"

"With Roxie. I already called her. She said she could get me my job back at the bar."

Eve raised her eyebrows. "You're really serious about this."

"Of course I am. What, I'm not allowed to be serious?"

"I never said that, I'm just----surprised I suppose. Surprised that you thought about this instead of just rushin' into some decision. I'm proud."

Ali looked a little shocked at that last comment, as if it were against Eve's nature to say something nice, and went back to her room.

* * *

**Balladeer: The day arrived when Luke was to leave. Not a dry eye to be found at the Duke farm-----sorry, y'all, I got (sniff) somethin' in my eye here. Go on without me.**

Luke threw his duffel bag outside on the front porch. The bus to pick him up was due in less than five minutes. Jesse was standing silent by the door, Daisy and Bo equally as quiet in their positions by the stove and the opposite side of the table respectively.

Jesse finally spoke up. "Don't forget to write us once ya get there. If I don't get a letter in the next three days from ya, I'll be worried that ya had an accident or somethin'."

"I won't forget, long as y'all keep writing me back." He could hear the bus engine coming down the road, about two miles away. It'd be there any minute now. He wrapped his arms around his uncle, who nearly broke his ribcage by squeezing so hard.

Luke blinked away some tears and went to hug Daisy, who didn't even try to hide that she was crying. She had tears running down her face. "Make sure to tell us when you're comin' home so I can fix your favorite meal."

"Will do, Daisy," he replied, giving her a kiss on the top of her head and letting her go. He went over to Bo, who was still quiet.

"You wanna hug me or do ya wanna shake hands?" Luke asked. Bo nearly jerked his cousin into his arms, gave him a tight squeeze and patted him hard on the back.

"Just come home, Luke. That's all I ask. Just come home."

"I will. I promise," Luke told him. He heard the bus pull up in front of the driveway and then heard the sound of the driver honking his horn. Luke pulled away, gave Bo a smile then turned to head towards the door.

Everybody followed him somberly outside and stood on the porch to watch him leave. Daisy leaned on Jesse, who wrapped his arms around her. Bo wiped a few tears from his eyes as he watched his cousin reach the doors of the bus. Luke turned and waved at everybody, who waved back. And then he disappeared inside the bus and after a few minutes . . . he was gone.

* * *

It was the day the court would hear the sentencing of Boss Hogg. Rosco, like he said he would, had testified on the witness stand, although it was rather hard to do with Boss glaring at him the entire time. Lulu was sitting next to her brother on the front row on the prosecution side of the courtroom, holding his hand and using a tissue to wipe tears from her eyes. 

Boss was next to his attorney waiting for the judge to read out the sentence. He looked back at his brother-in-law, glared at him, and then turned back around to face the judge, who held a piece of paper in his hands.

"Jefferson Davis Hogg," he began. "You have been found guilty on charges found against you, including counterfeiting, blackmail, threatening unarmed civilians _and _armed police officers, and the other charges that were mentioned yesterday in court. You are hereby sentenced to thirty years of imprisonment, slight chance of parole. You will be transported to Bonner State Prison this afternoon." The judge hit his gavel against his podium. "Court dismissed."

Rosco closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief that Boss wasn't going to be anywhere near Hazzard County. Lulu burst into crying and got up to leave. Rosco opened his eyes back up only to see that Boss was glaring at him rather evilly.

"You're gonna pay for this, Rosco Coltrane," he growled, getting a whack on the head from one of the officers. "I'll get you an' those rotten Dukes."

"Be quiet, Hogg," the officer reprimanded, shoving him towards the door to where the squad car was waiting.

Boss continued to turn his head and give Rosco warning looks the entire way he was out the door. Rosco gulped, put his hat on his head, and got up to go find his sister so that they could leave this wretched place.

* * *

Sorry so short y'all. The way I've got it planned right now, there's one more chapter after this, then I'll be workin' on the sequel. Stay tuned. 


	24. New Beginnings

**The Wind Blows Free**

**Chapter Twenty-Four: New Beginnings**

Bo didn't know whether to cry about Luke leaving or be happy about Rachel moving in. It seemed so strange to see all of Luke's "guy" stuff being replaced by Rachel's "girl" stuff. No, not replaced. They were being held in temporary storage----until Luke came back or until Bo could find him and Rachel a place to live on their own. He had no idea how much money that would take----Cooter had told him that he would allow him to work with him at his garage, and Daisy had mentioned that she could get Rachel a job with her at the Boar's Nest. Of course, they accepted the offers, but nonetheless, life was sure going to be different from now on.

He brought in another of Rachel's boxes of clothes and sat it on the floor next to the empty bed that was Luke's. Jesse had suggested that they strip both of the twin sized beds and put them up together to make one big full-size bed for them to sleep on. They had extra sheets and blankets in the closet for them to use for the bigger sized bed.

Rachel herself felt a little funny moving into someone's house that she didn't know that well, but as long as Bo was there with her she felt perfectly fine. She was a little uncomfortable when left with Daisy or Jesse by herself, seeing how she didn't know them very well but there would time for that in the future. Daisy seemed to love the idea of a baby in the family, and would ask whether she would want a boy or girl, what kind of names she liked, those kinds of things.

Ali was there helping Rachel and Bo move all her stuff in. Ali had used Eve's car to drive to the farm in, leaving Eve behind to clean up the messes they were making at their house. Ali was almost done with her own packing to go back to Atlanta in. She would miss Hazzard, but for the time being all she really wanted to do was get back to the city away from everybody. She wished that she had gotten to say good-bye to Luke, even if he had some something stupid the last time she spoke to him. She regretted slapping him the other night, wished she had apologized. Boys will be boys, boys will say stupid stuff.

"There's two more boxes after that one," Rachel told Bo as he sat down the package on the floor. She sighed and wiped a hand across her brow. "I hope this works out okay."

"It will, don't worry," he told her, giving her a kiss. "You'll see. We'll have our own place someday. I just don't know when."

Rachel rubbed her stomach. She couldn't imagine herself with a giant belly in the near future, but for some reason the whole thing seemed natural to her. She imagined a baby crawling around her feet on the floor while she cooked breakfast for Bo at their own house and smiled.

* * *

The phone in Lulu's office, which was formerly her husband's, rang continuously. She was just now getting back with Rosco from Boss's sentencing, and she had to rush to answer it.Rosco didn't see Eve at her desk and didn't see any signs of her having come in earlier, so he went inside the office with Lulu.

"Oh, hello, Eve dear," Lulu greeted when she recognized the voice on the phone.

"Say hello from Rosco," her brother said when he heard Eve's name.

"Rosco says hello. She said hi back."

He got one of them ear-to-ear grins on his face when he heard that.

"What's that, dear? Moving?"

His grin fell. "Movin'?"

"Shh!" Lulu hissed, trying to hear. "All right, dear, you take as long as you need. You're welcome. Bye."

She hung up the phone and turned to tell Rosco what Eve said on the phone about having to help her sisters move out of her house that day and drive one of them to Atlanta, but before she could she saw he'd done run off and disappeared out of sight. Next thing she knew she heard tires squealing outside and the sound of an engine being revved up. Lulu realized what had happened and burst out laughing.

* * *

Eve was busy trying to throw her sisters' belongings off her couch and sofa. She hated a mess and those two certainly knew how to make one. Ali's make-up kit had snapped open and all her gook was scattered on the floor and seat cushions, and Rachel's little figurine boxes were scattered about, amongst other things. She was surprised how they managed to fit all their stuff in the back of her car, without counting what had already arrived from the moving van that had been there the day before.

She had her arms full of clothes and other items when she heard the sound of somebody knocking on the door. Looking around at the mess in the living room and at the pile in her arms, she groaned and threw everything on the floor in Ali's room and shut the door. She wiped her hands on her jogging pants she had on and tried to make herself somewhat presentable to whoever was at the door. She swung the door open to see—

"Rosco? How'd ya find my house?"

"Cooter," he answered simply. When he had realized he had no clue where Eve lived, he had to make a pitstop at Cooter's for directions, which he surprisingly gave him. "Where's your car?"

"The girls have it. They're moving Rachel's stuff over to Bo's house." He looked confused. "Oh. They got married, don't know _why _but they did."

He never would have thought that Bo would be the first to get married, but he didn't dwell on the topic too long. "_Rachel's _moving? You're not?"

"No, I'm the only one that's staying here. Ali's movin' back to Atlanta soon as Rachel gets done with her stuff," Eve explained. "You look plumb frazzled. What's the matter?" It suddenly hit her and she smiled. "You thought I was moving away, didn't you?"

"Well . . . yeah," he said, a little embarrassed but nonetheless relieved that she wasn't leaving.

"An' you came running over to here to talk me out of it, too, didn't you?"

His mind rolled into the gutter, not too sure how to answer that. She took his silence as a "yes, of course I did, why else would I be here?" statement, smiled and said, "Well, since you're here, might as well come on in. Pardon the mess, those two never know how to clean up around here." _And to think, the last guy I told I was movin' actually helped me pack my stuff!_, she couldn't help but think as she backed up a few steps so he could come in.

When she did so, she didn't realize that one of Ali's lipsticks was lying on the floor, and when she stepped on it, she just about fell over on her head except that Rosco caught her at the last minute and set her upright on the floor. They stood there for a split second just looking in each other's eyes and holding each other, and then the suspense couldn't be taken any longer and they (finally!) kissed each other.

* * *

From his seat on the bus, Luke saw the sign on the side of the road that said, "Now leaving Hazzard County! Come back and visit soon!". A small pain went throuh him seeing the "now leaving" part. As if he had finally hit him that he was going to be gone a few months. As for the rest of the sign, of course he planned on coming back. And it wasn't gonna be for just avisit either . . . after all, somebody was gonna have to keepan eye on thingsonce Bo got settled with the married life,right?

**The End (for now . . . )**

* * *

Many thanks to all who reviewed, they really kept me going on this.Keep an eye out for thesequel **Straightening** **the Curves**, starring the Dukes, Coltranes, a Davenport, and I might throw in a littleHogg.Stay tuned. 


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